How Israel Organizes and Arms Settler Militias to Terrorize Palestinians in the West Bank

 

What often appears as sporadic settler violence is in fact an organized system with an official structure fully operating as intended.

Story by David Schutz

IBSIQ, WEST BANK—On July 20, around ten masked men raided the Palestinian hamlet of Ibsiq in the northern Jordan Valley in the occupied West Bank. They arrived in a two car convoy, dressed in Israeli military-issue fatigues, and carried assault rifles fitted with green laser pointers.

While their vehicles blocked the road, they stormed into a cluster of homes. At gunpoint, they forced a Palestinian family to their knees and warned them they had 48 hours to evacuate Area C and go to Area B—referring to technical designations of control in the West Bank under the Oslo Accords. Area C is under full Israeli control and Area B is technically under Palestinian civil administration but shares security control with Israel. The masked men said they would “return and burn the community down,” if the family did not evacuate to Area B.

I had been staying with an elderly Palestinian couple for five days in Ibsiq to document settler violence amid rising threats against the community. As the men approached, I asked one of them who he was. They looked like soldiers, but the vehicles in which they arrived had yellow civilian license plates. These masked assailants were members of the hagmar— settler reservist militias formally attached to the Israeli army and tasked with “security” in West Bank settlements.

The men dragged me behind a fence where four of them beat me until I required hospitalization. They stole the phone of an International Solidarity Mission activist who tried to record the attack.

My host, Abu Safi, who was 84, had little choice but to leave his home after that raid by the hagmar. The family packed up their belongings accumulated over decades in the house and moved to a nearby location in Area B. Abu Safi died of a heart attack soon afterwards.

The raid on Ibsiq, whose Palestinian residents have since all fled the depopulated hamlet, offers a glimpse into an essential part of how Israel rules the West Bank.

In parallel with Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza that began in October 2023, Israeli violence from settlers and soldiers in the West Bank escalated to record levels. About 3,000 settler-related attacks causing Palestinian casualties or property damage were recorded between October 2023 and mid-2025, with more than 1,000 of them in the first 8 months of 2025, and 264 incidents in October 2025 alone—the highest monthly total since the UN began monitoring in 2006.

Over the past two years, settlers have increasingly been “going into houses, holding people at gunpoint, and giving them 24 hours to leave, and many have…It happened in Khirbet al-Maktal, Umm Salam, Razeem, and elsewhere,” Nasser Nawaja, a field researcher with Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, told Drop Site News. “We file complaints, but many times the authorities tell us the perpetrators were acting outside their capacity as soldiers, so we’re referred to the police,” Nawaja added. “Then the police say it’s a military matter. We end up in a situation where no one investigates.”

An Integrated Web of Civilians and Soldiers

Settler violence against Palestinians often appears sporadic, but it is an official government system with an organized structure operating as intended.

Since 1967, Israel has ruled occupied Palestinian territories through dual structures—military occupation and civilian settlements—each reinforcing the other while mutually devolving responsibility.

At the heart of this arrangement lies a legal device: regional settlement councils, chartered under the 1964 Municipalities Ordinance as standard Israeli municipalities, yet which operate in occupied Palestinian territory. Israeli jurisdiction rests on military orders and the West Bank Emergency Regulations, which extend most aspects of Israeli law in personam to settlers but not to the land itself. Territorial authority is supplied by the Israeli military, making the army the de facto sovereign.

Within this framework, the state delegates enforcement to settlers. Each settlement appoints a ravshatz, or a civilian security coordinator, paid by the Defense Ministry and authorized by the military to command a plain clothes rapid-response squad, or kitat konenut, of 20 to 40 volunteers within the settlement boundary. Weapons are issued from the Defense Ministry’s Department for Settlement Security; additional arms also flow from the National Security Ministry.

Inside Israel proper, these squads fall under police authority. Beyond it, across the military’s sector that covers rural border areas and all West Bank settlements, the ravshatz usually operates through a local security officer, or kabat, who is appointed by the settlement council to coordinate with the army.

Parallel to the ravshatz are the Hagmar Territorial Defense brigades: a reserve network integrating each settlement into a military grid broken out into districts, blocs, and areas. At the two top levels—district and bloc—the hagmar report to the regional hagmar command of the IDF. At the lowest level, the area hagmar corresponds to a single settlement. Each settlement coordinates with its area hagmar through its appointed kabat.

The hagmar are issued uniforms by the IDF, while the kitot konenut are not. The distinction between the kitot konenut and the area hagmar is merely a technical one, with the same settlers often serving in both units.

In short, the settlement appoints a security coordinator who essentially commands his own volunteer militia that is armed and funded by the state. Those same settler volunteers also often serve in uniformed army reservist militias under the control of the military that coordinates with their settlement. The volunteer militias, the reservist militias, and the military itself all work together to attack and terrorize Palestinians in the West Bank.

Graphic credit: Meghnad Bose

Although wartime command is meant to shift from local coordinators to the army, the West Bank has never officially been declared a war zone. It remains under what the military calls “ongoing routine security,” a permanent state of civilian control by armed settlers under military cover.

“On paper, the weapons are checked in and out by the ravshatz, but in reality, they almost never come back,” said an Israeli solidarity activist who monitors settler violence in the South Hebron Hills, and who spoke to Drop Site on condition of anonymity, citing security concerns. “In some councils, the armory rules are strict; in others, people just keep the guns at home. It depends on the local kabat and how much the army wants to look the other way.”

While the ravshatz and the settlement’s kitat konenut are technically limited to operating within their settlement, military auxiliaries like hagmar, operating in theory at broader territorial echelons, are not.

“The result is that we have settlers operating as the military without regulation,” Roni Peli, of Israeli human rights organization Yesh Din, told Drop Site.

Forced Evictions

This system was on full display in mid-October on the outskirts of Al-Mufaqara, a hamlet in Masafer Yatta. Armed settlers broke into a Palestinian family’s cave-home, forcibly expelled them, and moved in—threatening to shoot anyone who approached. I arrived a few hours later to find the family and several Israeli solidarity activists outside waiting for the police.

“When the Palestinians tried to stop them, a group of armed men arrived, some in uniform, some not, including Binyamin Zarbiv, the ravshatz from Ma’on,” an Israeli activist who witnessed the incident told Drop Site, pointing to the settlement some 200 meters away. They also spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing security concerns. “They aimed their rifles at the Palestinians and at us, while the settlers carried their belongings inside.”

As we waited, an armed man in a ragtag uniform, identified by the activist as one of those who had arrived earlier, demanded my ID. He claimed to be representing Hagmar Har Hevron, though no such Israeli military unit officially exists, and identified himself as a member of three bodies: Ma’on’s rapid-response squad, the area hagmar unit, and a so-called farm patrol. He refused to say which group had sent him.

“The settler who broke in called the ravshatz on his phone,” the activist said. “That’s how it usually happens. The ravshatz makes a few calls, and within minutes they start showing up—half in uniform, half not—all with state-issued rifles.”

The man told me that he would be collecting a full day’s pay for his work, and acknowledged that he could do so whenever he wanted. He claimed his rifle came “from the army,” adding that he had received it “from the base,” but when pressed, he clarified that the “base” was the settlement itself, where no army base exists.

When the Israeli Civil Administration and police finally arrived, accompanied by army soldiers, they declined to review documents proving Palestinian ownership and left the militia in control of the site.

A few kilometers away in Susya, footage from August 24 shows a group of armed men invading the small community, some in fatigues, others in civilian clothes. One of them assaulted a Palestinian resident who was later hospitalized with a severe concussion.

The head of the Susya village council, Jihad Nawaja, said he recognized the attackers immediately. “I’ve known this man for 15 years,” Nawaja told Drop Site, pointing to an armed settler wearing civilian clothing. “The one who beat the Palestinian was his son. They came with armed men from Susya, in uniform, to tell us to evacuate. ‘Leave and move to Hebron,’ they said. There was no other reason for them to come that night.”

Nawaja’s brother, B’Tselem researcher Nasser Nawaja, who is also a resident of Susya, said armed groups of organized settlers frequently also detain Palestinians. They “kidnap people often … anyone who tries to resist eviction. They take him, warn him not to do it again, and release him later,” he said. “I once saw them during an attack near Susya. Settlers were escaping from the police, and one of these men helped drive them away.”

In a recurring pattern, settlers raid in broad daylight and, hours later, the same men reappear in uniform to enforce closures and secure the ground they seized.

“They also actively intercept the army’s radio frequency, to listen in on coordinations with the Palestinians. Once we had coordination for plowing, from four to eight o’clock… they found out and made sure it stopped,” Nawaja added.

Rights groups report that complaints about organized violence by armed settlers routinely bounce between various jurisdictions of Israeli authorities. Police classify suspects as “military auxiliaries” and pass the files to the army; the army returns them as “civilian” cases; civilian authorities cite military jurisdiction, and the investigations close for “lack of evidence.”

A Private Army

Before October 7, 2023, Israel maintained about 450 rapid response squads, according to a 2024 report by the Knesset Research and Information Center (KRIC)—the non-partisan research arm of the Israeli parliament. Roughly 390 of the kitot konenut operated under army supervision in West Bank settlements, while the border police (a police paramilitary unit that operates on both sides of the green line) oversaw 50 and the police oversaw fewer than ten.

The report found that the division of control between government bodies over these units rests on a 1974 government decision that was never published and is missing from the state archives. Military Order 432 of 1971, which regulates kitot konenut in the West Bank, and related directives on open fire and emergency mobilization also remain classified.

In the report, researchers described sweeping non-cooperation from the Israel police, Defense Ministry, and IDF—none of which provided data on the squads’ authority, arming, or oversight. The KRIC noted that its report relied on partial replies and public sources, as “no response was received from the bodies involved.”

Following October 7, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir announced more than 700 new kitot konenut, expanding the police-run network, while the army’s share remained largely unchanged. The new units were incorporated under the border police, the only way Ben-Gvir could get a mandate to operate outside the green line. By early 2024, the government listed 906 active units, with a target of 1,086 by year’s end. By late October 2025, 1,052 kitot konenut units were active.

In October 2023, Ben-Gvir’s ministry also began distributing around 10,000 newly purchased assault rifles to kitot konenut and loosened gun-ownership eligibility, while the Defense Ministry supplied training, ammunition, and armory infrastructure. By November 2025, Ben-Gvir’s office said roughly 230,000 gun licenses had been issued over the past two years. Meanwhile, the National Missions Ministry funded vehicles, drones, and surveillance systems; regional councils added weapons and vehicles through private and foreign donors, including U.S.-Jewish federations that gifted sniper rifles to kitot konenut under campaigns like “Friends of Samaria.”

The KRIC noted that much of this equipment was distributed through ravshatz-operated armories, bypassing Israeli military depots. Earlier in 2023, the government created the Mishmar Leumi (National Guard), a Border Police reserve under Ben-Gvir, meant to absorb local militias and volunteer frameworks. Activated after October 7, it became a vehicle for mobilizing and reinforcing kitot konenut, with recruitment tracks allowing civilians to join armed policing roles outside the traditional Magav or IDF pathways. Formally under the police commissioner, its control can shift to the minister of national security in emergencies.Leading critics call it Ben-Gvir’s “private army.”

Simultaneously, the army expanded hagmar battalions, adding about 5,500 reservists for a total of roughly 8,000, divided between regional companies and settlement-level auxiliaries known as bnei hayishuv (“sons of the town”).

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s new Settlements Administration inside the Defense Ministry absorbed powers from the Civil Administration, giving his office direct control over civilian-security budgets: armories, budget lines, weapons requests, and patrol mandates. Under this structure, new siyur havot (“farm patrols”) emerged to police land outside settlement boundaries, funded from the same Defense Ministry budgets as the kitot konenut.

By May 2024, when the army began reducing hagmar deployments, a parallel militia network aligned to Ben-Gvir’s National Guard and Smotrich’s policy priorities was already firmly entrenched. The military is now considering further troop reductions in the West Bank, transferring security responsibilities to “local elements,” according to the Jerusalem Post.

On their websites, West Bank regional councils describe their roles in deliberately opaque terms: the South Hebron Hills Council boasts of “creating and maintaining local security elements”; the Jordan Valley Council pledges to “define security components in conjunction with security forces”; and the Binyamin Council vows to “improve and maintain local security components.”

“They don’t distinguish even between the hagmar and the rapid-response squads, everyone’s in uniform now,” a resident from the South Hebron Hills told Drop Site on condition of anonymity. “I know many of them by name. Some even have criminal records. Now they’ve been given uniforms.”

This article is published in collaboration with Egab.

A detailed full report by this courageous reporter, directly from the occupied West Bank, of the situation there, all after the horrific massacres of Gaza, and the continuous bombardment and partial occupation of Lebanon and Syria. All under the eyes of the world, the international media and the UN. Still no one says anything, on the contrary some are directly complicit of this modern times colonialism, genocide and full transfer of an entire population. Only history will witness and judge these barbaric acts. I copied it from Drop Site News, for the understanding of our good readers.

   As always, my many thanks to all . 

THE MIDDLE-EAST AGAIN AND AGAIN.......

Syria: A Homeland Kidnapped Between Two Eras Since the dawn of its independence, Syria has been the flower of the East and the rose of the Mediterranean, blooming with freedom, its streets fragrant with the breath of intellectuals, and its cafes filled with the conversations of liberals, artists, and constitutionalists. It was the Syria we love, the Syria of a free economy, independent newspapers, and a living parliament, the Syria of agriculture, the Syria of industry, the Syria that dreamed, built, and dialogued. But in 1958, on the cusp of a forced union with Egypt under the young pharaoh Gamal Abdel Nasser, time began to twist around the neck of the republic. Syria entered a dark tunnel, in which the lights of politics were extinguished, the pens of freedom were broken, and its free economy was abandoned in favor of a Soviet socialism built on chanting rather than production. That was the moment of the assassination of the Syria we love, at the hands of a military ideology that did not believe in pluralism and saw freedom only as chaos to be curbed. Syria never recovered from the collapse of unity, but a new poison crept into its heart. The leftist Baath Party came, then Hafez al-Assad, and the homeland turned into a barracks, and the people into hostages in a republic of fear. From that moment on, Damascus came to know Moscow better than it knew Beirut, and to remember the language of the Kremlin better than that of the Arabs. Russia was not a friendly state, but rather a cold occupation that infiltrated under the threshold, an occupation that trained officers, formulated doctrine, and defined the enemy and the ally. Then, in 2015, the occupation was no longer disguised. Russia entered Syrian territory with its planes, its ships and flags, and its plans. Syria no longer had control over its own decisions, neither in war nor in peace. It became a homeland whose affairs were managed from an operations room in Hmeimim, not from the People's Palace. Amidst these ashes, a scene emerged, as if opening a window in an abandoned house: a Saudi prince leading prayers in the heart of the Umayyad Mosque. The first prostration echoed a buried memory, and the final prostration was a reminder that Syria had another face—an Arab, liberal, and luminous one, one that had been stolen decades ago. That scene wasn't just about religion. It was a reclaiming of the Syria that was stolen from us, the Syria that embraced the Gulf, argued with Cairo, and laughed in Beirut's cafes. The Syria that never knew the meaning of subservience, never prostrated to the mullahs or submitted to the Tsar.  

Today, the Arabs stand in the courtyard of the Umayyad Mosque, not to restore Assad, but to restore Syria.

A good description of the prevailing sentiments of many, well expressed by the talented writer, thinker and Lebanese judge Peter Germanos, thought of sharing it with my readers all over for better understanding of the fast moving changes and events throughout the Middle-East. 

Always, my many thanks to all. Stay safe and well. 

ONE MINUTE TO MIDNIGHT......

 

"WE WILL BURY THE PALESTINIAN STATE: EUROPEANS WILL HAVE NOTHING MORE TO RECOGNIZE!"

= Statement made the day before yesterday by Bezalel Smotrich, Minister of Finance and Settlement Development. These are not empty threats: he is simultaneously approving the construction of 3,400 housing units in the E1 area. For 29 years (since 1996), all Israeli governments have backed down in the face of international pressure and have renounced colonizing this absolutely strategic E1 area.
• Why is this a historic shift? 1) Because the E1 zone will permanently isolate the Northern West Bank (Ramallah - Nablus) from the Southern West Bank (Bethlehem - Hebron); 2) Because the E1 zone will completely isolate East Jerusalem (where 400,000 Palestinians live) from the rest of the West Bank. More details here: https://orange-juditha-6.tiiny.site via Daniel Seideman

• His supremacist accomplice Ben-Gvir went to Marwan Barghouti's cell yesterday and told him, on camera: "We will annihilate you, we will erase you."
• Why is this important? 1) Because these are the first images of Barghouti released in years and because he appears VERY thin. 15 days ago, I signed a text with 172 personalities to remind everyone that the release of the "Palestinian Mandela" is the only political option available to restore the Palestinian Authority and restart a negotiation process. If Barghouti suffered the same fate as Navalni, if he dies in his cell, this political perspective disappears. https://lemonde.fr/idees/article/2025/08/02/une-liberation-de-marwan-barghouti-par-israel-serait-essentielle-pour-avancer-vers-la-paix-et-une-solution-a-deux-etats_6626344_3232.html

• Yesterday, Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel traveled to Somaliland to negotiate the "relocation" of Gaza residents. The day before, Netanyahu confirmed on CNN that Israel is "negotiating with several countries right now," adding that "anyone who wants to help the Palestinians should open their doors to them." The plan to ethnically cleanse Gaza is therefore officially accepted at the highest level. As a reminder, on August 9, Trump confirmed on camera that he plans to recognize Somaliland if it accepts those expelled from Gaza.

• On i24NEWS English Netanyahu said yesterday that he felt "invested with a historic and spiritual mission" and was "very attached to the vision of Greater Israel" (as a reminder, "Greater Israel" includes Israel + West Bank + Jordan + Lebanon + Syria + Sinai). He added that any "political solution to the Gaza war would be synonymous with capitulation for Israel." The expansionist headlong rush is clearly accelerating.

> On July 24, Israeli Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu declared on the radio that "the Israeli government is engaged in a race against time to annihilate Gaza. We are eliminating its inhabitants. Gaza will be entirely Jewish." He speaks the truth, simply and bluntly, like Smotrich, like Ben-Gvir, like Netanyahu. Nothing is hidden, everything is assumed.

>> Faced with this absolute emergency, Germany decided on August 8th to impose an arms embargo on Israel. This was a historic decision, with far-reaching consequences (Germany accounts for 30% of arms imports to Israel). Norway, which holds the world's largest sovereign wealth fund, canceled all of its investments in Israel on August 11th.
>>> What is France doing? It "strongly condemns" the plan to annihilate Gaza (August 8); it "expresses its deep concern about the heavy price paid by journalists in Gaza" (August 12); it supports "the deployment of a temporary international stabilization mission in Gaza" (August 12); it has not yet reacted to the announcement of the colonization of the E1 zone.

• If Emmanuel Macron, Jean-Noël Barrot & France Diplomatie wait for the official proclamation of the State of Palestine on September 21 at the UN, they will no longer have anything to recognize, as Smotrich so cruelly but so rightly says.

> Pressure must increase for IMMEDIATE AND BINDING SANCTIONS on Israel a) Trade sanctions that will empty the stores in a few days and that will have an immediate effect on a geographically isolated and economically strangled country; b) legal sanctions by supporting the ICC arrest warrants and demonstrating to Israeli soldiers that they will never again be able to travel to countries that are signatories to international legal treaties; c) diplomatic sanctions by immediately banning European soil to all members of the Israeli government ("Schengen Travel Ban"); d) military and strategic sanctions: the announcement of a German embargo on arms deliveries to Israel is a decisive first step, it must be supported and amplified.

• It is one minute to midnight. If immediate and credible sanctions are not announced in the coming hours, the promise of recognition of Palestine next September will be null and void: Emmanuel Macron will have finally recognized a cemetery.

#SANCTIONS #CeaseFireNOW #BringThemHomeNOW

[Sources: CNN Haaretz.com The Times of Israel Le Monde]

This report was written back in late July or early August, since, the tone of the international community and the Israeli politicians have been suppressed and kept expressly low, but the plan continues, and the violence, the killings and destruction have moved to the West Bank, Lebanon and Syria, even redistribution and sectioning of Gaza,  and the same figures in Israel are there implementing and executing, with the world watching, smiling and keeping its mouth shut, no one is sure if the US is only watching or playing some positive and active role of complicity. But unfortunately the saga is obstinately continuing, while we're kept occupied with the question; will the Israeli president pardon Mr. Netanyahu or find another solution to the enigma.  

As always, my many thanks to all.   

A MIDDLE-EASTERN FRANK OPINION.....

 

First and foremost, we must always put ourselves in the shoes of the decision-makers in Israel.
Because it is the biggest, most important, and most dangerous enemy to us in the entire region for many years to come, and this situation will continue until two very important changes occur in this region and the world at large.

2- Changes in the global balance of power economically, technologically, and militarily
Led by China, Russia, India, North Korea, and the BRICS group of nations, who met in China two months ago.

3- The social and humanitarian change within American society, the signs of which appeared this time two years ago through the serious events after the complete destruction of Gaza and the destruction of the lives of 2 million Palestinians under the extreme right-wing government in Israel, and the killing of about 80,000 people, including children, women, the elderly, and young people, not to mention about
120,000 people who are completely or partially disabled, all of whom are out of service and unable to lead normal lives in the future.
.
4- This dangerous and inhumane situation has begun to deeply concern the majority of American society, especially the younger generation, people of color, Hispanics, and Asians, and to discover at least 200 million Americans believe that Israel and the Zionist movement, which controls the economy, finance, and decision-making in America, are against the interests of most of the American people and taxpayers from the poor and middle classes…

5-  This is the greatest existential threat that Israel, Zionism, and the lobbies will face in the next 10 years and beyond… and this is the first time that the Democrats, especially left-wing socialists are coming to power in America for the first time, as is currently the case with the new governor of New York, Mamdani, and the new governor of California.

Bernie Sanders' movement
And the Obama movement...
Non-Zionist Jewish currents
Those who see Israeli extremism
This is against the interests of the Jews in the near future; indeed, it poses an existential threat to them.

6- Regarding Israel's current extreme military policy, backed by Zionist America, in the short term Israel will most likely launch a swift and devastating war against Hezbollah, And Lebanon. Before it embarks on another possible rapid and destructive war over nuclear weapons in Iran... God knows ?!

It appears clearly that the Israeli right-wing ethnonationalist leadership will not always listen to President Trump's wishes.
they will implement their expansionist plans and transfers or elimination of local indigenous   inhabitants as far as possible in the region during the remaining three years of Trump's term, as this is still a fantastic opportunity for them.
This will not happen again in the future… because America’s role will change against Israel’s interests, whether by a large margin, a small margin, or gradually, America will wake up at some point and revert back to its own interests.

7- As for Syria, the ambiguity will continue... and no one can predict.
Because Syria is a very complex issue internally, regionally, internationally, and with regard to Israel.
Peace be upon the noble ones.

Received originally in Arabic, through a good friend, not clear who's the author, translated, formatted and published for our blog to the benefit of our readers, as it transcribes very well the general mood of many about the events in Israel/Palestinians and Israel with its entire neighbors, and their effects on world, and more so American opinions and politics.

As always, my many thanks to all. 

"Disobedience :"An Interview with Jean-Luc Mélenchon. "

 

The text below is an interview with Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the "France Insoumise" movement, with Tariq Ali, editor-in-chief of the quarterly "New Left Review," on July 11. Al-Akhbar, a leading Lebanese newspaper, is publishing a translation of the most prominent points, given the importance of the article's coverage of international developments, the nature of the US-China tension, and its implications.

⚫ Let's start directly with Gaza. We hope this is the final stage of this Israeli war. The human toll will reach hundreds of thousands of dead, and perhaps approach half a million. No Western country has made a serious attempt to stop it. Last month, Trump ordered the Israelis to sign a ceasefire agreement with Iran, and when Israel violated it, he became furious. To use his immortal phrase: "They don't know what they're doing." But this leads me to ask: Do you think the Americans know what they're doing?

-We must try to understand the logic of these Western countries. It is not enough to say that Trump is crazy or that the Europeans are cowards; they may be, but what they are doing is based on a long-term plan—a plan that failed in the past, but is now being implemented.
This plan is based, first, on reorganizing the entire Middle East to ensure access to oil for the countries of the Global North; and, second, on creating the conditions necessary for a war with China.

The first goal dates back to the Iran-Iraq War, when the United States used Saddam Hussein's regime as a tool to contain the Iranian revolution. After the fall of the Soviet Union, they launched the Gulf War, and Bush Sr. declared a "new world order." From the outset, I viewed this as an attempt to control oil and gas pipelines and protect American energy independence by maintaining prices at a level that ensured the viability of oil extraction through hydraulic fracturing, the technology they employ.

When we understand these basic imperial ambitions, we understand other events more clearly.
For example, what did the United States do in Afghanistan after the 2001 invasion? It blocked an oil pipeline through Iran.
The war against ISIS in Syria was, in many ways, also a war over a pipeline.
This, then, is a largely logical chain. An empire is only truly an empire if it can maintain control over certain resources—and that is precisely what is happening today.

The United States has decided to redraw the map of the Middle East, using Israel as a tool and ally.
They realize that Israel must be rewarded for this role. This has been achieved by politically supporting the "Greater Israel" project, in which the Palestinian population in Gaza and elsewhere is supposed to disappear.

If Europe and the United States had wanted to stop this war, it would have ended within three or four days of Israeli responses after October 7. But it has been going on for more than twenty months, so no one can claim that the Americans don't know what they are doing. What is happening in the region is intentional, planned, and orchestrated in coordination between the United States and Netanyahu.

⚫ You mentioned that the second part of the American plan is to clash with China. Many liberals and center-leftists today see what is happening in the Middle East as horrific, and that the real enemy should be China. But they don't realize that China is actually the real target, because, as you said, if the United States controlled all the region's oil—as it would if Iran fell—it would control the flow of this vital commodity. It could then force Beijing to beg for it, which would help keep it under control. So, while the American strategy in the Middle East may look completely crazy from the outside—and it is, on many levels—it also has a deep logic: it is better to fight China this way, and or even wage a war against it.

-I firmly believe that the day will come when we will have an "Insoumise" government capable of asserting sovereignty over our domestic production and our foreign policy: a government that recognizes that China, while a threat to the imperial system, is not a threat to us. This is what I am fighting for.

If the capitalist system continues to dominate, with neoliberals remaining in power, humanity will be on the road to destruction. The reason is simple: capitalism is a suicidal system that profits from the disasters it creates. Every previous system was forced to stop when it produced too much chaos. But this system isn't like that. If it rains heavily, it sells you an umbrella. If it gets too hot, it sells you ice cream or air conditioning.

As for Germany, that's a different matter. As you know, in France we often say, "Our German friends." Well, the Germans are nobody's friends. They always think only of their own national interests. They break agreements with us all the time. And today, they're ready to invest $46 billion in their war economy because they lost the battle for the auto industry more than fifteen years ago.

However, even the Germans learned a harsh lesson from the United States. They ended up relying on Gazprom for their energy. Mr. Schröder went to work for this company and got a good deal with the Russians. Then the Americans came and said, "Stop," and Nord Stream was destroyed. You see, the empire strikes down anyone who disobeys its orders.

⚫ What do you think the world will be like at the end of this century?

- The only thing we can know for sure is that humanity will either have to find a way to unite to confront climate change, or it will collapse. There will always be people who survive storms, droughts, and floods. But technicians will not be able to hold society together as a whole. In France, we have some of the best technicians in the world, but they are foolish enough to think that things will remain as they are.
They are planning to build new nuclear plants as part of their climate strategy, but nuclear plants cannot operate without cooling, and cooling requires cold water, which is becoming increasingly scarce.

We've already started shutting down some stations because temperatures have become excessive.
This is just one example, but there are dozens of other cases where political decisions are made as if the world will remain as it is.
As materialists, we must approach political action within the confines of an ecosystem threatened with collapse. Unless we start from this premise, our arguments are worthless.

We can also look at the issue from a geopolitical perspective. Today, 90% of global trade is carried out by sea. But this is not necessarily the easiest way to transport goods. Several studies have already shown that rail transport is safer, faster, and often cheaper. We can therefore imagine that as the climate deteriorates, the Chinese will begin to explore alternative routes for exporting their products. The Beijing-Berlin route will be essential in connecting them to Europe; remember, China previously chose Germany as the final destination of one of the Silk Roads. The other major route passes through Tehran and enters Europe from the south. China will have a global advantage in developing these new trade channels because it is the dominant power in terms of technical efficiency—a crucial feature of “traditional” capitalism.

The United States, however, no longer possesses that technical capability. The Americans are unable even to maintain the International Space Station orbiting Earth, while the Chinese replace their space station crew every six months. The Americans can barely send anything into space, while the Chinese finally landed a robot on the dark side of the moon.
“Westerners”—and I put the word in quotation marks because I don’t like it; I don’t consider myself a “Westerner”—are too self-absorbed to acknowledge this imbalance.

In short, if the capitalist system continues to dominate, with neoliberals remaining in power, humanity will be on the road to destruction. The reason is simple: capitalism is a suicidal system that benefits from the disasters it creates. Every previous system was forced to stop when it produced too much chaos. But this system isn't like that. If it rains heavily, it sells you an umbrella. If it gets too hot, it sells you ice cream or air conditioning.

In the coming decades, collectivist systems will demonstrate that collectivism offers a more satisfying perspective for human beings than liberal competitiveness. On a very personal level, I would venture a prediction: I believe that before the end of this century—and perhaps even sooner—the United States of America will cease to exist.

Why? Because it's not a real nation, but a country at war with all its neighbors since its founding. Samuel Huntington described it as an intrinsically unstable structure and predicted that Spanish would become its dominant language. Today, about half of the population of the United States speaks Spanish at home, and this group is predominantly Catholic, unlike the Enlightenment Protestants who founded the country. These linguistic and cultural dynamics are crucial. People are deeply attached to their mother tongue—the language in which a mother sings to her child and says "I love you" to a partner.

In California—a state that was taken from Mexico in 1822 and has the sixth-largest economy in the world by GDP—Spanish is now more widely spoken than English.

Therefore, it's no surprise that the California independence campaign is gaining momentum, and a referendum may even be held next year. I don't know if it will succeed, but it's remarkable that a key state in the global superpower is actively considering secession. And we're bound to see more of this in the future. The country's prevailing ideology—"each for itself"—will not be able to maintain its unity.

 A very realistic and factual analysis, describing what is the position of the Western world in general and the US in particular, I received it originally by email and translated to Arabic , from its original French version, the present format and the English translation are mine and Google's, again and always to the benefit and better understanding of my good readers.                               

                                As always, all my thanks to all.