Chomsky, Epstein, and the contradictions that question us

Riccardo Taddei, comune-info,11/2/2026
Translated by Tlaxcala

Riccardo Taddei is an Italian legal scholar, an expert on the Mashreq, and author of the book L’ordine del Chaos. Anatomia del conflitto tra Israele e Palestina [The Order of Chaos. Anatomy of the Conflict Between Israel and Palestine (Ombre corte)].

Can one spend a lifetime denouncing capital and the commodification of bodies, then accept the company, favors, and intimacy of a pedocriminal* capitalist who built his power network also on the trafficking of young girls? If we take seriously what Chomsky wrote about power, the answer is brutal: yes, it is possible. 

Chomsky today is the living demonstration of his own theories on the manufacturing of consent, not because he was hypocritical from the start, but because no one is immune to the dynamics he describes once one acquires sufficient prestige. The most devastating lesson of the Epstein-Chomsky affair is that contemporary power does not primarily function through open repression of dissidents, but through their incorporation.

“The political stakes are not to erase Chomsky or burn his books. The stakes are to stop projecting onto our masters an aura of purity…” writes Riccardo Taddei — We are left with the obligation to build forms of critique of power that are more collective, less dependent on isolated charismatic figures… And we are left, perhaps above all, with the responsibility to apply systemic critique to ourselves, to our circles, to our practices. What are our “Epsteins,” perhaps on a smaller scale?… (Ed. note comune-info)

 

I esteemed Noam Chomsky for years. I read him, cited him, used him as a moral and intellectual compass. It is precisely for this reason that seeing his name appear so frequently in the Epstein files – not as an occasional contact, but as a recurring presence, complicit, grateful for the access Epstein could guarantee him – is not merely judicial information: it is a symbolic slap, the collapse of a certain image of the radical intellectual.

What emerges from the documents is now clear: Chomsky did not just “meet Epstein once,” he maintained this relationship for years after the 2008 conviction for sex crimes against minors, considering him a valuable interlocutor for understanding the global financial system, flying on his jet, and benefiting from his connections. One cannot reduce all this to a simple misunderstanding, a distraction, an “I didn’t know.” At this level of information, at this age, with this analytical lucidity, knowing who Jeffrey Epstein was, was not an optional detail, it was the starting point – which Chomsky amply crosses, even going so far as to justify him.

From this arises the question that left me astounded: can one spend a lifetime denouncing imperialism, capital, the commodification of bodies… and then accept the company, favors, and intimacy of a pedocriminal capitalist who built his power network also on the trafficking of minors? If we take seriously what Chomsky wrote about power, the answer is brutal: yes, it is possible. Not because it is “right,” but because the system he himself described is so pervasive that it encompasses even its most radical critics, when they see in a power node like Epstein a privileged channel of access to information, relationships, resources.

Here emerges a devastating paradox: the intellectual who spent decades deconstructing the mechanisms of manufactured consent, who taught us to look with suspicion upon any form of concentrated power, who unmasked the connections between economic and political elites, found himself sitting at the table of one of the darkest nodes of that same network. And the justification – wanting to “understand the financial system from the inside” – sounds terribly hollow when we think of the young girls whose suffering made the existence of that table possible.

Symbolic co-optation as a strategy of power

Here, it is not only Chomsky’s personal consistency that is at stake, as painful as the disappointment may be. It is the very image of what it means today to be a “critical intellectual.” The Epstein affair shows us that elites do not only want billionaires, bankers, and politicians at their table: they also want philosophers, linguists, scientists, Nobel laureates, leftist voices. Not to discuss their books, but to be able to say: “everyone, even your masters, come through here.” It is symbolic co-optation. On the material level, the bodies of the victims; on the symbolic level, the reputations of those who should have been on the other side of the barricade.

This is perhaps the bitterest lesson: power does not need to convince its critics to remain silent. It is enough to make them complicit through proximity, through access, through that grey area where “socializing” does not necessarily mean “approving” but certainly means normalizing.

Every time Chomsky got on that plane, every shared dinner, every conversation on global finance while elsewhere young girls were being reduced to commodities, constituted a small victory for the system: even the most radical critic can be drawn inside, if offered enough intellectual curiosity to satisfy.

Epstein’s three powers

Epstein, in this framework, is not an isolated monster but the concentration of three powers: financial, relational, and biopolitical. Financial, because he managed opaque capital and assets and acted as an intermediary between wealth moving out of public sight. Relational, because his agenda mixed former heads of government, scientists, intellectuals, tech and finance managers, creating a grey area where decisions and agreements were made far from any oversight. Biopolitical, because his “service” was not only financial advice, but also access to bodies, especially vulnerable bodies, treated as luxury goods and instruments of blackmail.

This tripartition is crucial to understanding why Epstein was so central and why his fall shook so many different spheres. He was not “merely” a pedocriminal, not “merely” a wealth manager, not “merely” an elite networker. He was all of this at once, and it is precisely this convergence that made his power so absolute and his impunity so lasting.

Financial power gave him access to the corridors where the fates of entire economic sectors are decided. Relational power made him an indispensable hub for anyone wishing to connect to other power centers. And biopolitical power – the most obscene – guaranteed him both direct control over the bodies of victims and a form of indirect control over those who, by associating with him, potentially rendered themselves vulnerable to blackmail, exposed, compromised.

Beyond Marx: possession, impunity, shared secrets

Marx spoke of the possession of the means of production; with Epstein, we see something even more naked: the possession of bodies and the purchase of impunity. Not only the bodies of abused young girls, moved like commodities between islands, villas, and planes; but also the social body of entire elites, held together by shared secrets, exchanged favors, potential scandals suspended like swords of Damocles. It is a capitalism that does not limit itself to exploiting labor: it buys silence, it buys access, it buys even the possibility of never being fully judged, as demonstrated by today’s substantial silence.

This is the evolution – or perhaps better, the revelation – of what capitalism had always been, even in its earlier forms, but which today manifests itself with brutal clarity. From slave plantations where masters claimed the right to possess not only the labor power but the very bodies of slaves, to the nineteenth-century industrial magnates who exercised sexual power over female workers, capitalism has always had this biopolitical dimension. Epstein simply takes it to the extreme, globalizing it, financializing it, making it an integral part of a transnational network of power and perversion.

And there is an additional, even more subtle element: possession through shared secret. Those who frequented Epstein, those who accepted his favors, those who boarded his planes, became members of a community of silence. Not necessarily accomplices to his crimes in the strict sense, but certainly bound to him by an implicit pact: I do not speak of what I know, you do not speak of me. It is a form of power that goes beyond direct blackmail: it is the creation of a class that recognizes itself through what it knows and keeps silent about, through shared privileges that remain invisible to the public.

The short-circuit, then, is this: a theorist of systemic critique who agrees to enter this constellation, not as an undercover investigator, but as someone rubbing shoulders and therefore grateful. This is not the mistake of a naive youth; it is the choice of an aging intellectual who decides that Epstein’s informational and relational value counts more than the moral scandal attached to his name. We can rationalize as much as we want – curiosity, studying elites “from the inside,” the desire to understand financial mechanisms – it remains that certain lines, if one wishes to remain an example of consistency, one does not cross. The Epstein line was one.

And here we must be honest with ourselves: if it were a conservative intellectual, a neoliberal economist, an apologist for capitalism who had frequented Epstein, we would have dismissed it with a shrug. “Obviously, they’re all the same, power attracts power.” But with Chomsky, it hurts precisely because we expected something different. We expected his theories to translate into consistent life practices, that analytical lucidity would also generate ethical vigilance. Instead, we discover that one can be the most brilliant analyst of power and nevertheless succumb to its seduction when it presents itself in the “right" form – not as direct corruption, not as explicit purchase, but as privileged access to the heart of the system one studies. It is the intellectual version of that dynamic which Chomsky himself described for the media: it is not necessary to directly buy journalists, it is enough to create structural conditions where certain behaviors become natural, obvious, inevitable.

Beyond the person: the system that encompasses even critics

For this reason, the political stakes are not to erase Chomsky or burn his books. The stakes are to stop projecting onto our masters an aura of purity that places them outside the world they describe. Chomsky is not a saint who fell from his pedestal: he is a man inserted into a power network who, at a certain moment, chose to value access over critical distance. This makes him, despite himself, a perfect case study of what he himself analyzed for decades: the integration of intellectuals into the machinery of power, their legitimizing function, their vulnerability to the seduction of inner circles.

There is a tragic irony in all this: Chomsky becomes the living demonstration of his own theories on the manufacturing of consent. This “intellectual class” he described as structurally integrated into the power system, this tendency of experts to gravitate around decision-making centers, this subtle complicity between those who analyze power and those who exercise it – all of this materializes in his own biography. Not because he was hypocritical from the start, but because no one is immune to the dynamics he describes once they become sufficiently prestigious, sufficiently “interesting” for the holders of real power.

The real question

And so the question changes: no longer “how could Chomsky?”, but “how deep is a system, where even the most radical critics find it convenient to orbit around those who possess money, bodies, secrets?”. Epstein and his network demonstrate that at certain levels, capitalism is not content with owning factories, banks, and media. It also wants to hold the bodies of victims and, with them, the biographies and reputations of those who might one day rise up and denounce. When you sit at that table, you think you are entering “to understand the system”; in reality, it is the system that enters you and makes you a participant in its stagecraft.

This is the most devastating lesson of the Epstein-Chomsky affair: contemporary power does not primarily function through open repression of dissidents, but through their incorporation. It is not necessary to silence Chomsky when you can have him as a guest on your private jet. It is not necessary to censor his critiques when you can make him part of the landscape he criticizes. It is a form of neutralization far more sophisticated than censorship: let them say whatever they want, provided that then, in real life, they are willing to have a drink with you.

And this extends far beyond Chomsky. How many other critical intellectuals, activists, investigative journalists find themselves in similar grey areas? How many accept funding from foundations linked to questionable billionaires? How many participate in conferences sponsored by companies they otherwise criticize? How many build academic careers studying power while subtly becoming an integral part of it? The Epstein affair is extreme, but the dynamic is widespread.

Preserving lucidity in disappointment

I continue to recognize the analytical value of many of Chomsky’s pages. But I can no longer use them as if they were the discourse of someone who remained outside the deadly embrace of the power he criticizes. This affair does not destroy the theory, but it forces us to also look at theorists as subjects exposed to the same logic of co-optation they describe. And it reminds us of an uncomfortable thing: in a capitalism that demands not only profit, but impunity and the possession of bodies, no one – not even the most lucid of critics – is automatically safe from the risk of becoming, even if only in some trait, part of the problem.

One could even say that this affair confirms, in a perverse way, the validity of Chomsky’s analyses of power. If the system were less pervasive than he described it, he himself would not have fallen into it. The fact that even such a radical critic can be integrated demonstrates exactly how powerful the mechanisms he spent his life describing are. It is not a consolation, but it is a lesson not to be wasted.

What to do with this awareness

So, what remains for us? Not gratuitous iconoclasm, not the destruction of everything Chomsky wrote. Rather, a more difficult task remains: learning to read critical thought through the contradictions of its authors, and not despite them. Using the Chomsky-Epstein affair as a permanent reminder that ideas must walk on their own legs, independently of who formulated them.

We also remain with the obligation to build forms of critique of power that are more collective, less dependent on isolated charismatic figures. If our analysis of capitalism collapses when our reference intellectual guru collapses, then it was not solid enough. The power structures Chomsky described exist independently of whether he was consistent or not in his fight against them. Our task is to recognize them and fight them, with or without perfect masters.

And we remain, perhaps above all, with the responsibility to apply systemic critique also to ourselves, to our circles, to our practices. What are our “Epsteins,” on a smaller scale? What compromises do we make to gain access to resources, platforms, information? Where do we draw our red lines, and how far are we willing to move them when the access offered to us is sufficiently enticing?

The Epstein-Chomsky affair is not an end, it is a starting point for a more mature reflection on the critique of power. It takes away our innocence, it forces us to look without veil at how difficult it is to remain consistent in a system designed precisely to co-opt even dissidents. But it is precisely this awareness, as painful as it may be, that can make us better critics – less inclined to the adoration of masters, more attentive to the concrete dynamics of power, more vigilant towards our own compromises.

The disappointment burns. But if we manage to metabolize it without falling into cynicism, it can become the foundation of a more lucid, more disenchanted critique, more capable of looking at power – and at those who claim to criticize it – with truly free eyes.

After all, my greatest master, my docker father, had warned me as soon as I was young, first a high school student then a university student: power devours you, especially if you are an intellectual… always remain faithful to those you come from.

Transl. Note
*The original uses the unfortunately widespread term “paedophile” which does not seem to us to suit child and minor abusers, for which we prefer the term pedocriminal.

 

The self-righteous Empire: “Keep England white!”(Churchill, 1955)

Rafael Poch de Feliu, CTXT, 28/1/2026
Translated by Tlaxcala

After Gaza, the question being asked, from a place of vertigo, by the conscious sector of European public opinion is how to explain the complicity and cooperation of European governments, institutions, and media with the Israeli colonial genocide. The answer lies in history: it is European colonial history that links Western governments to the Israeli massacre.

The entertainment industry is a fundamental tool of Western hegemonism. In close collaboration with the political, military, financial, and media complex, its production penetrates every household daily, performing a key ideological function, perfectly identified and understood. In retrospect, the Hollywood industry managed to turn that universal encyclopedia of infamy—the history of European colonialism, particularly that of the British, direct relatives of today’s hegemon—into exploits, epics, and romantic tales. The list of films glorifying great colonial crimes has yet to be written, but it suffices to cite classics like "Lawrence of Arabia" (1962), "55 Days at Peking" (1963), "Zulu" (1964), or "Khartoum" (1966) to remember how an entire generation grew up lulled and entertained by this exalting genre whose legend they internalized.

It is instructive to compare reading any serious work on the action of the British Empire in India or China with films like "Victoria & Abdul" (2017) by Stephen Frears, or "Tai-Pan" (1986) by Daryl Duke, to measure the level of vileness of such bombardment. Frears presents the warm friendship between Queen Victoria and her Indian servant at a time when Indians were dying of hunger in horrific crises directly related to colonial governance. Duke’s film is inspired by the figure of William Jardine (1784–1843) to construct a romantic, erotic, and heroic fiction around history’s principal drug trafficker, who condemned 150 million Chinese to drug addiction and became one of the richest and most powerful men of his time.

The Empire Marketing Board (EMB) produced more than 800 advertising posters to encourage the British to consume colonial goods, without much success. Created in 1926, it was dissolved in 1930.

Maintained for over two centuries of violence, racism, and exploitation, the British Empire is still presented in the most haughty and arrogant manner as a civilizing and model enterprise, alongside the French, Spanish, Portuguese, etc. empires—declared defective or manifestly failed.

"For some nations, Spain for example, the opening of the world was an invitation to prosperity, pomp, and ambition, an ancient way of proceeding. For others, like Holland and England, it was the occasion to do new things, to ride the wave of technological progress," writes David S. Landes (In: The Wealth and Poverty of Nations, 1998).

This consistency with the more than ambiguous "vector of progress" noted with satisfaction by the illustrious Harvard historian may explain the current and renewed nostalgia for the British Empire, warned of by two authors critical of the phenomenon (Hickel and Sullivan). "High-impact books like Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World by Niall Ferguson and The Last Imperialist by Bruce Gilley have claimed that British colonialism brought prosperity and development to India and other colonies. Two years ago, a YouGov poll revealed that 32% of Britons are proud of the country’s colonial history," they note.

This same pride in the colonial past is, without doubt, shamefully still present in many other old imperial nations, but nowhere, as among the "Englishmen on both sides of the Atlantic" that Benjamin Franklin defined as "the most important nucleus of the white people," does this feeling have more consequences for the present.

"The empire, as it had been, formally came to an end in the 1960s, but its unhappy legacy remains in today’s world, where numerous conflicts occur in former colonial territories," observes Richard Gott in his compendium on British imperialism (Britain’s Empire, 2012). "If Britain was so successful with its colonies, why do many of them remain significant sources of violence and unrest?" he asks. The British—now reduced to the humble category of sheriff’s deputies, to an even greater extent than the rest of the Europeans—"have continued to wage wars in the lands of their former empire in the 21st century, and much of the British population has unquestioningly reverted to their old stance of unthinkingly accepting what is done in their name in far-flung places of the world," says Gott. The role played in the 19th century by "civilization," "commerce," and "Christianity" imposed on the "savages" is now played by the ideology of human rights, gender equality, and other noble causes. For all these reasons, recalling the exemplary exploits of such a virtuous empire is not a historical exercise but an imperative for understanding the present, and very particularly for understanding European complicity (political, financial, commercial, military, and media) with the Palestinian genocide.

Caged prisoners on route to Sydney, New South Wales

The British Gulag

The British Empire was a military dictatorship in which colonial governors imposed martial law at the slightest dissent. For over 200 years, it was the scene of constant revolt and repressive violence. In the metropolis itself, hundreds of thousands were confined in His Majesty’s island Gulag. Especially after the independence of the United States closed that colonial territory of the new world—in the thirty years before 1776, a quarter of emigrants arriving in Maryland were convicts—Caribbean islands like Bermuda and Roatán (Honduras), Asian ones like Penang (Malaysia), or Indian Ocean islands like the Seychelles or Andaman, were part of the British island prison system, which also sent many Indian and Chinese prisoners to Singapore. In the 19th century, the Seychelles were a prison for leaders of revolts and local notables from Zanzibar, Somalia, Egypt, or Ghana, who for one reason or another could not be executed. Archbishop Makarios, leader of the Greek Cypriot nationalists, was held there as recently as 1956. But it was Australia, the great island-continent offering unlimited space, that was the primary destination the government needed for the social detritus of its catastrophic industrial revolution—that great milestone of "progress" extolled by Landes.

In 1840, half the population of Tasmania, about 30,000 people, were prisoners. Since maintaining prisoners in metropolitan jails was expensive, the minimum sentences for deportation to Australia—to get them off the government’s hands, even for petty theft—were seven years. Between 1788 and 1868, 162,000 convicts were sent to Australia, including 4,000 trade unionists, Chartists, Luddites, the famous "Daughters of Rebecca" from Wales who smashed tollgates and barriers to protest privatization and road tolls, as well as 2,000 Irish revolutionaries.

The terrible situation of repressed individuals and convicts from the metropolis themselves repressing and massacring native populations in the colonies—so vividly seen in the United States with Native American nations—was repeated in other European colonies and also in Australia. In 1824, the military governor of New South Wales granted colonists, many of them deported ex-convicts, a license to kill Aborigines at will. The governor was named Thomas Brisbane, and his surname today names one of Australia’s major cities.

 

Below Decks, by Rodney K. Charman (1995).  Representation of the interior of a “coffin ship”( long cónra) transporting Irish migrants to America. Knights of Columbus Museum collection

The Irish Famine

Some consider the Chinese famine during the Great Leap Forward (1958–1962) the largest in history. A century earlier, the Irish Famine ("An Gorta Mór") was considerably worse than the Chinese one when considering the proportion of the population involved. With eight million inhabitants, hunger and its consequences carried off between one and two million Irish people. Some places lost a third of their population, half dead and the other half through emigration. (Patrick Joyce, 2024, Remembering Peasants: A Personal History of a Vanished World).

"I have visited the desolate remains of what were once noble redskins in their North American reservations and I have explored the black neighborhoods where Africans are degraded and enslaved," wrote English Quaker philanthropist James Hack Tuke in 1847 in a letter following his visit to Connaught, "but I have never seen such misery, nor such advanced physical degradation, as that of the inhabitants of the bogs of Ireland."

Other countries like France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, and Russia also suffered potato blights in 1846/1847, but unlike what happened in Ireland under British rule, they halted exports of other foodstuffs to compensate for the loss. English policy destined food produced in Ireland for export—a strategy whose maintenance was considered more important than the lives of the Irish. One of the protagonists of this policy, Assistant Secretary to the Treasury Charles Trevelyan, was more concerned with "modernizing" the Irish economy than saving lives, and thus saw the famine as an opportunity to apply radical free-market reforms.

"We have not the slightest doubt that, by virtue of the inscrutable but invariable laws of nature, the Celt is less active, less independent, and less industrious than the Saxon. This is the archaic condition of his race," wrote The Times, the central newspaper of the imperial establishment.

The Economist, the same weekly that in the 1990s preached the virtues of the Russian shock therapy—which left a demographic toll of half a million, mostly working-age men—while denigrating China’s reform, published on January 30, 1847, an editorial dedicated to the Irish crisis. "That the innocent should suffer with the guilty is a sad reality," it said, "but it is one of the great conditions on which the existence of all society is based. Every violation of the laws of morality and social order carries its own punishment. That is the first law of civilization." (In: The Economist and the Irish Famine — Crooked Timber)

Since the 16th century, a tithe was in effect in Ireland whereby the mostly Catholic Irish had to pay a tenth of their annual income to finance the Protestant church. Until 1829, Catholics who refused the Protestant oath of allegiance to the crown could not hold public office. During the famine, English Protestant theologians attributed the potato blight to "popery," that is, Catholicism, which had "provoked the wrath of God." The satirical weekly Punch constantly published cartoons depicting the Irish as brutish, dirty, lazy, violent apes, solely responsible for their own misfortune.

In 1847, while The Times ignored the famine’s disasters, a relief campaign was launched in the United States that exposed the London government. Packages marked "Ireland" were transported free by rail, and 114 ships were chartered with aid.

The Irish Holocaust continued for those who managed to emigrate. In the last of the three centuries of the slave trade, during which about ten million Africans were transferred to the New World, with half of them dying in the process of capture and transport, according to one of the great historians of that traffic (Joseph Miller, 1988, Way of Death), Irish emigrants met a fate not so different. On the English ships carrying Irish emigrants to America, conditions were so appalling that one in four died during the voyage or within six months of arriving in the New World. The mortality recorded on what were described as “coffin ships” was no less than that on ships transporting African slaves to the colonies. That this mortality was particularly high on English ships points to clear criminal negligence: for every death of an emigrant aboard an American ship, there were four on a British one; and for every sick person arriving in the United States on a North American ship, five arrived on a British vessel. In 1847, of the 98,000 emigrants who arrived in Canada on English ships, 25,000 died on the voyage or within six months of arrival. All this was news in the US and Canadian press, but the Times of London ignored it. The British government only began taking measures in 1854, seven years later. (Thomas Gallagher, Paddy's Lament, Ireland 1846-1847: Prelude to Hatred, 1982)

The entertainment industry has completely ignored the Irish Famine, but in 2018, a rare Irish exception produced in Luxembourg presented "Black 47" by director and screenwriter Lance Daly, an action film with a breathless western rhythm built upon the framework of that historical tragedy. The Times this time highlighted the film’s "macho theatricality," noting that "everything is deeply absurd, but within a hauntingly profound setting." The Independent emphasized the "excessively bleak" character of what it dubbed a "potato western" in allusion to spaghetti westerns, and The Guardian lamented that "the caricaturization of the villains diminishes the impact" of that excellent film, which was nonetheless a box office success…

Ireland in the West and Burma in the East were the territories most powerful and tenacious in their resistance to the English, which is why repression was particularly harsh there, but convulsions, famines, and revolts were also chronic in India.

Fresco on the walls of Shaheed-Smarak or Martyrs'-Memorial Auditorium in Jabalpur MP (India), depicting the Quit India Movement by local artist Beohar Rammanohar Sinha from Santiniketan

India

According to a recent estimate, in just the forty years from 1880 to 1920, British colonization caused an estimated 100 million deaths in India, resulting from the impoverishment of the population and the increased frequency and mortality of famines. (Jason Hickel, Dylan Sullivan, "How British colonialism killed 100 million Indians in 40 years"). "This is one of the greatest policy-induced mortality crises in human history," the authors state. "It is larger than the combined total of deaths that occurred during all the famines of the Soviet Union, Mao’s China, North Korea, Pol Pot’s Cambodia, and Mengistu’s Ethiopia," all in the 20th century, they say. Before that, in 1770, a great famine devastated Bengal, killing about 10 million of its inhabitants, a third of the population. The situation was worsened by the monopoly on rice and other products imposed by the British East India Company, which governed the territory. Collapse and taxes, combined with drought and hunger, marked the beginning of English rule in India, a pattern that would persist for 200 years.

Since its arrival on the subcontinent in the 17th century, Britain destroyed India’s manufacturing sector, which had exported textiles worldwide. The colonial regime eliminated tariffs on British textile products and created a system of taxes and internal barriers that prevented Indians from selling their products within the country, let alone exporting them. "If the history of British rule in India had to be condensed into a single fact, it would be this: between 1757 and 1947 there was no increase in per capita income, and in the second half of the 19th century, incomes surely fell by more than 50 percent," says Mike Davis (Late Victorian Holocausts, 2002). The new colonial economy made populations more vulnerable to droughts and adverse natural phenomena that fostered hunger. According to historian Robert C. Allen (Global Economic History: A Very Short Introduction, 2011), under British rule, extreme poverty rose from 23% in 1810 to over 50% by the mid-20th century, real wages decreased, and famines became more frequent and more deadly. Distant past?

England’s most important politician of World War II, Winston Churchill, who died in 1965, was a confessed racist. In the 1940s, he referred to Indians as "a beastly people with a beastly religion" and of the 1943 Bengal famine, which left three million dead, he claimed it was "their fault for breeding like rabbits." In 1919, Churchill declared himself "quite favorably inclined to the use of poison gas against uncivilized tribes." In the 1930s, he defined Palestinians as "barbaric hordes who eat nothing but camel dung." Before the war, he was an admirer of Mussolini ("I could not help being charmed by his gentle and simple bearing and his serene poise") and had words of praise for Hitler in 1937, the year of Guernica: "One may dislike Hitler’s system and yet admire his patriotic achievements. If our country were defeated, I hope we should find a champion as admirable to restore our courage and lead us back to our place among the nations." In the 1955 election campaign, Churchill proposed a slogan for the Conservative Party that many Europeans subscribe to today: “Keep England White!”

Throwing Oneself into the Belly of the Beast: Don Gustavo Buendía at the White House

Tigrillo L. Anudo, La Pluma, 3/2/2026

Translated by Tlaxcala

What will Trump and Petro on this Tuesday Feb.3 talk at the White House about, in a context of threats, interventions, unfounded accusations, bombings, and a declared imperial ambition without scruples?

What does Trump want from Petro?

He wants to bring him to his knees. To subject him to his agenda of domination over the Latin American backyard.

Trump believes he holds all the cards. He will be “diplomatic” in his dealings with the Colombian president, but his ambitions will continue on their course.

He already has the governments of Argentina, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Bolivia, El Salvador, and Panama on their knees; Chile, Honduras, and Costa Rica are next.

He has already fraudulently intervened in the elections of several countries. He wants them all. Obedient.

Why did he kidnap President Maduro? To tell the others (without saying it outright) that they could be next.

The level of malice and egolatry displayed by Trump knows no limits. And the world carries on as if nothing were happening. There are no authorities capable of stopping a convicted criminal, a seditionist, an abuser, a thief, and a murderer.

The world reveals what it has always been: a jungle with its own “law”

Trump wants to interfere in Colombia’s upcoming elections. He is determined to install a puppet government. That is why, through his subordinates, he has received the stooge Colombian political operators.

The orange agent does not mince his words. He knows exactly what he is after. He will meet Petro in order to obtain information that will allow him to continue his interventionism in Colombia.

President Petro will know how to handle the great blackmail that the emperor will present to him.

Trump has Petro by the throat. He had him included on the Clinton List to weaken him and make him vulnerable to blackmail. He accused him of being a drug lord for the same purpose.

Trump believes he holds all the cards.

And he does.

He has a coordinated plan with the local lackeys. Domestically, they managed to repeal the economic emergency decree. They are going to disqualify Iván Cepeda from the Broad Front consultation. The National Electoral Council has just revoked the Historical Pact’s list in the Valle del Cauca for the House of Representatives.

Everything is coordinated. Internal and external war against the continuity of the political project of change.

It is in this context that the Trump–Petro meeting will take place.

Infamy keeps turning the crank without pause.

What can be done in the face of such ignominy?

OPC (Organized Political Crime) has taken over the high courts, Congress, the Prosecutor’s Office, the Inspector General’s Office, and the Comptroller’s Office. Enough to win the lawfare and to destroy the election of more lawmakers from the Historical Pact.

This dirty war isn’t just talk. It is what the economic and political oligarchy has always done, for more than 200 years.

The only difference is that now they are forced to show their manners without keeping up appearances.

So, what’s next?

Gaza: Past, Present, Future? Truth and the Battle for Free Speech Norman Finkelstein's Talk at University of Massachusetts – Amherst, Sept. 24, 2025

The genocide in Gaza has sparked a global battle for freedom of expression, opinion, and organization, both in the North and South of the planet. The response of so-called democratic regimes to movements of solidarity with the Palestinian people has been appalling, marked by the most brutal repression of actions and words, from Berlin to Tangier, from London to New York. Norman Finkelstein, a Jewish scholar and son of Holocaust survivors, was ostracized long before October 7, 2023, for his denunciation of what he called the Holocaust industry. His talk at the University of Massachusetts in September 2025 was historic. It was his first appearance at a US university since October 7. His words deserve to be engraved in the marble of history. Here they are.

The Glocal Workshop, January 2026
50 pages, A5
Dewey Decimal Classification: 956.94 – 323.119 – 323.44 – 378.121 – 378.744

Download free Ebook

Our ebooks are free of charge. Any contribution is welcome.

Or donate to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society

A Cease-fire for Israelis and a War for Palestinians

Why should Gaza interest anyone when Israelis aren’t being killed? When the blare of sirens dies down in Israel, that’s considered a cease-fire

Gideon Levy, Haaretz, 18/1/2026

Mikail Çiftçi, Türkiye

 When Israelis aren’t being killed there’s a cease-fire. When Israelis aren’t being killed but over 400 in Gaza are, including 100 children, that too is called a cease-fire. When Israel demolishes 2,500 houses in Gaza in the middle of a cease-fire, and Defense Minister Israel Katz praises IDF soldiers for their operations, that is still called a cease-fire.

When hundreds of thousands of Gazans are freezing to death and wallowing in mud, that comes under the definition of a cease-fire.

When thousands of seriously ill people are dying because Israel denies them life-saving medical attention or the possibility of leaving their cages and going elsewhere for treatment, this a cease-fire. When an educated Israeli woman asks during a Sabbath meal whether there are still Israeli soldiers in Gaza at a time when over one half of the enclave is occupied by the IDF, that is a quintessential indicator of the existence of a cease-fire, at least as Israelis define it.

When life in Israel returns to normal, with cooking and song contests in full swing, and with in- depth discussions of the fateful issue of the leak to Bild magazine in Germany, that is the be-all and end-all of cease-fires. Only when a Hamas squad emerges from its hole and tries to plant an improvised explosive device in the rubble of Gaza, that is a grievous infraction of the cease-fire.

Haut du formulaire

Bas du formulaire

When Israelis aren’t being killed, all the rest is of no interest. Why should Gaza interest anyone when Israelis aren’t being killed? When the blare of sirens dies down in Israel, that is a cease-fire. The fact that Gaza is still being bombed, but lacks sirens, is irrelevant. The world too is already showing signs of weariness with regard to Gaza, despite this weekend’s news of the establishment of a "Board of Peace," which will not save a single dispossessed person in Gaza from their bitter fate.

When Israelis are not being killed, a return to routine is declared, meaning that the war is over and that one can return to the victimhood stance of October 7, to the endless retelling of the stories of the hostages, to getting mired down in yesterday’s grief, being stunned every time there is a desperate attempt from Gaza to remind people of its existence. When Israelis aren’t being killed, Gaza doesn’t exist, nor does the entire Palestinian problem.

When Israelis aren’t being killed, everything is good. When they aren’t being killed one can resume denying and forgetting Gaza. When Israelis aren’t getting killed in the West Bank, life is even more wonderful. The fact that dozens of Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since the cease-fire took effect is even less interesting than the hundreds of Gazans killed in the same period.

News of the existence of a cease-fire in Gaza has not reached the West Bank or the IDF’s Central Command. All the draconian restrictions imposed in the West Bank at the beginning of the war in Gaza remain in place, not one of them having been rescinded or eased.

If those restrictions were imposed because of the war, why weren’t they lifted when the war ended? Nine hundred roadblocks set up during the war? Nine hundred roadblocks remain after the cease-fire took effect. Iron gates at every Palestinian community, opening and closing intermittently since the war began? The same thing continues after the war ended. Pogroms during the war? Even more so after it ended. When Israelis are not being killed, there’s no problem.

The decision to impose on Israel the signing of a cease-fire agreement turned out to be the deal of the year. This is the first one-sided cease-fire in history. Israel is permitted anything while the other side is not allowed to breathe. All the hostages were returned except for one body, and the promise to evacuate Gaza once the hostages were returned evaporated instantly, forgotten as if it were never made. Remember? The hostages were returned, and Israel is in Gaza, since then and forever.

The cease-fire also subdued the world outcry against Israel. Some in the world waited for an opportunity to return and embrace Israel, and a unilateral cease-fire is that opportunity. The world has moved on to Venezuela and Iran.

Trump can continue disseminating his idea of the invented peace he brought to the Middle East, and Israelis can continue telling themselves that the war in Gaza was justified and achieved all its objectives. Now it’s over. There is a cease-fire. The main thing is that Israelis are not getting killed in Gaza. All the rest is of no interest.

The Greatest Historical Error of Palestinian Leaders

Ricardo Mohrez Muvdi, 16/1/2025
Translated by Tlaxcala

Ricardo Mohrez Muvdi is Palestinian, born in Beit Jala, Palestine (1952). A refugee in Colombia, he is a business administrator and president of the Palestinian Union of Latin America (UPAL), established in 2019 in San Salvador, El Salvador. He is also president of the Colombo-Palestinian Cultural Foundation.

The greatest mistake Palestinian leaders have made over decades of failed negotiations has been making concessions to Zionism in the belief that surrendering fundamental rights would bring peace, justice, or genuine recognition. History has shown precisely the opposite.

From the beginning of the modern conflict, the demand should have been clear: one single, democratic State with equal rights for all its inhabitants throughout historic Palestine. Accepting—and continuing to defend—the idea of “two States” was not only a poor strategy; it has been a progressive surrender of Palestine, legitimizing colonization, territorial fragmentation, and covert ethnic cleansing.

The so-called “two-State solution” was born already mutilated. It was not a proposal of justice, but of managing dispossession. Every Palestinian concession was met with more settlements, more walls, more checkpoints, and more racial laws. Negotiating under occupation was never negotiating: it was accepting the rules of the occupier. Persisting today in the fantasy of two States is not only naïve but politically suicidal. On the ground, there is no territorial continuity, no real sovereignty, and no control over borders, water, or resources.

What is being offered to the Palestinian people is not a State but fragmented, dependent, and surveilled reservations. Meanwhile, the Zionist project has been consistent: advancing without retreating, consolidating faits accomplis, and demanding international recognition without granting equality. In this sense, continuing to speak of two States is de facto endorsing the permanence of the occupation and accepting the transformation of territorial theft into international legality.

The only ethically, historically, and legally sustainable proposal is a single State in which Palestinians, whether Muslim, Christian, or Jewish, live with equal rights, free from ethnic or religious supremacy. A state where the right of return, equality before the law, and historical justice are non-negotiable.

This is not utopian; it is a matter of consistency. Apartheid regimes are not to be reformed—they are to be dismantled. And liberation does not arise from concessions to the oppressor but from steadfastness in principles. The Palestinian people have not survived decades of expulsion, exile, and resistance to settle for crumbs. Dignity is not negotiable—it is exercised.

 

UPAL: Gaza depois do fogo after the fire después del fuego après le feu غزة بعد النار

📌Editorial da União Palestina da América Latina - UPAL

Gaza Depois do Fogo: Reconstrução ou Reconfiguração Forçada?

(em português, inglês, espanhol, francês e árabe)

Com o anúncio do início da segunda fase do cessar-fogo, tenta-se apresentar Gaza como se estivesse entrando em uma nova etapa: uma administração palestina tecnocrática e de transição, reconstrução, calma e um discurso regional e internacional que sugere o encerramento do capítulo da guerra. No entanto, a realidade demonstra que este não é um processo genuíno de recuperação política e humanitária, mas sim uma nova forma de gerir a crise.

Israel afirma isso com absoluta clareza: não haverá retirada completa, nem abertura total das passagens de fronteira, nem reconstrução antes do desarmamento da resistência. Em outras palavras, a intenção é implementar o acordo a partir do seu fim. Para Israel, a segunda fase não é política, mas estritamente uma questão de segurança: desmantelar a resistência, mantendo o direito de intervir militarmente quando julgar necessário, sem prazos ou garantias para o levantamento do bloqueio.

Nesse contexto, não há disposição para reconhecer a genuína soberania palestina. O que se propõe é uma administração de serviços palestina, subordinada ao controle israelense. Assim, a reconstrução deixa de ser uma obrigação ética e humanitária e se torna um instrumento de pressão e chantagem política, onde a vida cotidiana é garantida em troca da renúncia aos direitos nacionais.

A posição americana, apesar de sua linguagem “moderada”, não difere em essência da israelense. Reconstrução, retirada e qualquer solução política são condicionadas ao desarmamento da resistência, como se a Palestina não fosse um povo sob ocupação, mas um problema de segurança. Nesse contexto, ressurgem fórmulas de tutela internacional ou “estabilidade”, que na prática significam a transição da ocupação direta para uma administração internacional sob a hegemonia americana e a lógica sionista, adiando mais uma vez a soberania palestina.

E o que isso significa para Gaza?

Significa ajuda humanitária limitada, uma reativação parcial da vida e melhorias nos serviços, em troca de uma paralisia política total: nenhum Estado, nenhuma soberania e nenhuma visão nacional. Gaza está passando de uma guerra aberta para uma trégua frágil, perpetuamente suscetível a colapsos, com a constante ameaça de novas agressões.

Gaza precisa de mais do que apenas cimento e aço. Precisa de uma visão política clara e de garantias reais de que o sangue de seus mártires não se tornará uma mera moeda de troca em negociações de segurança.

Será esta segunda fase um caminho para a recuperação e uma paz justa?

Ou um novo mecanismo para gerir a crise e remodelar Gaza pela força, após o fracasso da subjugação militar?

União Palestina da América Latina – UPAL

16 de janeiro de 2026

Editorial from the Palestinian Union of Latin America - UPAL

Gaza After the Fire: Reconstruction or Forced Reconfiguration?

With the announced start of the second phase of the ceasefire, an attempt is being made to present Gaza as if it were entering a new stage: a technocratic and transitional Palestinian administration, reconstruction, calm, and a regional and international discourse that suggests the closing of the chapter on war. However, reality demonstrates that this is not a genuine process of political and humanitarian recovery, but rather a new way of managing the crisis.

Israel states this with absolute clarity: there will be no complete withdrawal, no full opening of the border crossings, and no reconstruction before the disarmament of the resistance. In other words, the intention is to implement the agreement starting from its end. For Israel, the second phase is not political, but strictly a matter of security: dismantling the resistance while maintaining the right to intervene militarily when it deems necessary, without timelines or guarantees for lifting the blockade.

Within this framework, there is no willingness to recognize genuine Palestinian sovereignty. What is being proposed is a Palestinian service administration, subordinate to Israeli control. Thus, reconstruction ceases to be an ethical and humanitarian obligation and becomes an instrument of pressure and political blackmail, where daily life is granted in exchange for relinquishing national rights.

The American position, despite its “moderate” language, does not differ in essence from the Israeli one. Reconstruction, withdrawal, and any political solution are conditioned on the disarmament of the resistance, as if Palestine were not a people under occupation, but a security problem. In this context, formulas of international tutelage or “stability” reappear, which in practice mean moving from direct occupation to international administration under American hegemony and Zionist logic, postponing Palestinian sovereignty once again.

And what does this mean for Gaza?

It means limited humanitarian aid, a partial reactivation of life, and improvements in services, in exchange for total political paralysis: no state, no sovereignty, and no national vision. Gaza is transitioning from open war to a fragile truce, perpetually susceptible to collapse, with the constant threat of renewed aggression.

Gaza needs more than just cement and steel. It needs a clear political vision and real guarantees that the blood of its martyrs will not become a mere bargaining chip in security negotiations.

Will this second phase be a path toward recovery and a just peace?

Or a new mechanism for managing the crisis and reshaping Gaza by force, after the failure of military subjugation?

Palestinian Union of Latin America – UPAL

January 16, 2026

📌Editorial de la Unión Palestina de América Latina - UPAL

Gaza después del fuego: ¿reconstrucción o reconfiguración forzada?

Con el inicio anunciado de la segunda fase del alto el fuego, se intenta presentar a Gaza como si estuviera entrando en una nueva etapa: una administración palestina tecnócrata y transitoria, reconstrucción, calma y un discurso regional e internacional que sugiere el cierre del capítulo de la guerra. Sin embargo, la realidad demuestra que no se trata de un verdadero proceso de recuperación política y humanitaria, sino de una nueva forma de administrar la crisis.

Israel lo dice con total claridad: no habrá retirada completa, ni apertura total de los pasos fronterizos, ni reconstrucción antes del desarme de la resistencia. Es decir, se pretende aplicar el acuerdo comenzando por su final. Para Israel, la segunda fase no es política, sino estrictamente de seguridad: desmantelar la resistencia manteniendo el derecho a intervenir militarmente cuando lo considere necesario, sin calendarios ni garantías para levantar el bloqueo.

En este marco, no existe voluntad de reconocer una soberanía palestina real. Lo que se propone es una administración palestina de servicios, subordinada al control israelí. Así, la reconstrucción deja de ser una obligación ética y humanitaria para convertirse en un instrumento de presión y chantaje político, donde la vida cotidiana se concede a cambio de renunciar a los derechos nacionales.

La postura estadounidense, pese a su lenguaje “moderado”, no difiere en esencia de la israelí. Reconstrucción, retirada y cualquier solución política quedan condicionadas al desarme de la resistencia, como si Palestina no fuera un pueblo bajo ocupación, sino un problema de seguridad. En este contexto reaparecen fórmulas de tutela internacional o de “estabilidad”, que en la práctica significan pasar de una ocupación directa a una administración internacional bajo hegemonía estadounidense y lógica sionista, posponiendo una vez más la soberanía palestina.

¿Y qué significa esto para Gaza?

Significa ayuda humanitaria limitada, una reactivación parcial de la vida y mejoras de servicios, a cambio de una parálisis política total: sin Estado, sin soberanía y sin horizonte nacional. Gaza pasa de una guerra abierta a una tregua frágil, permanentemente susceptible de estallar, con la amenaza constante del retorno de la agresión.

Gaza no necesita solo cemento y acero. Necesita un horizonte político claro y garantías reales de que la sangre de sus mártires no se convierta en una simple variable dentro de negociaciones de seguridad.

¿Será la segunda fase un camino hacia la recuperación y una paz justa?

¿O un nuevo mecanismo para administrar la crisis y reconfigurar Gaza por la fuerza, tras el fracaso de someterla militarmente?

Unión Palestina de América Latina – UPAL

16 de enero de 2026

📌Éditorial de l’Union palestinienne d’Amérique latine (UPAL)

Gaza après le feu : reconstruction ou reconfiguration forcée ?

Avec l’annonce du lancement de la deuxième phase du cessez-le-feu, on tente de présenter Gaza comme entrant dans une nouvelle ère : une administration palestinienne technocratique et transitoire, la reconstruction, le calme et un discours régional et international suggérant la fin de la guerre. Or, la réalité démontre qu’il ne s’agit pas d’un véritable processus de redressement politique et humanitaire, mais plutôt d’une nouvelle manière de gérer la crise.

Israël l’affirme avec une clarté absolue : il n’y aura ni retrait complet, ni réouverture totale des points de passage frontaliers, ni reconstruction avant le désarmement de la résistance. Autrement dit, l’intention est d’appliquer l’accord en commençant par sa fin. Pour Israël, cette deuxième phase n’est pas politique, mais strictement sécuritaire : démanteler la résistance tout en se réservant le droit d’intervenir militairement lorsqu’il le juge nécessaire, sans calendrier ni garanties pour la levée du blocus.

Dans ce contexte, aucune volonté de reconnaître une véritable souveraineté palestinienne n’est envisagée. Ce qui est proposé, c’est une administration palestinienne des services, subordonnée au contrôle israélien. Ainsi, la reconstruction cesse d’être une obligation éthique et humanitaire pour devenir un instrument de pression et de chantage politique, où la survie quotidienne est garantie en échange de l’abandon des droits nationaux.

La position américaine, malgré son langage « modéré », ne diffère pas fondamentalement de la position israélienne. La reconstruction, le retrait et toute solution politique sont conditionnés par le désarmement de la résistance, comme si la Palestine n’était pas un peuple sous occupation, mais un problème de sécurité. Dans ce contexte, les formules de tutelle internationale ou de « stabilité » refont surface, ce qui signifie en pratique passer de l’occupation directe à une administration internationale sous l’hégémonie américaine et la logique sioniste, reportant une fois de plus la souveraineté palestinienne.

Et qu’est-ce que cela signifie pour Gaza ?

Cela signifie une aide humanitaire limitée, une reprise partielle de la vie et des améliorations des services, en échange d’une paralysie politique totale : pas d’État, pas de souveraineté et pas de vision nationale. Gaza passe d’une guerre ouverte à une trêve fragile, constamment menacée d’effondrement, sous la menace permanente d’une nouvelle agression.

Gaza a besoin de bien plus que de ciment et d’acier. Elle a besoin d’une vision politique claire et de garanties concrètes que le sang de ses martyrs ne soit pas instrumentalisé dans les négociations de sécurité.

Cette seconde phase sera-t-elle un chemin vers la reconstruction et une paix juste ?

Ou un nouveau mécanisme de gestion de la crise et de remodelage de Gaza par la force, après l’échec de la soumission militaire ?

Union palestinienne d’Amérique latine – UPAL

16 janvier 2026

تحرير اليوم؛ الاتحاد الفلسطيني لأمريكا اللاتينية (UPAL) 📌

غزة بعد النار: إعمار أم إعادة تشكيل بالقوة؟

مع بدء الحديث عن المرحلة الثانية من وقف إطلاق النار، يُروَّج بأن غزة تدخل مرحلة جديدة: إدارة فلسطينية تكنوقراطية انتقالية( منزوعة الإرادة الوطنية، تحت سقف الاحتلال)، إعمار، تهدئة، وترحيب إقليمي ودولي يوحي وكأن صفحة الحرب قد طُويت. غير أن الواقع يكشف سريعًا أن ما يُطرح ليس مسار تعافٍ سياسي وإنساني، بل إعادة إنتاج للأزمة بأدوات مختلفة.

إسرائيل تعلن موقفها بلا مواربة: لا انسحاب كامل، ولا فتح كامل للمعابر، ولا إعمار قبل نزع سلاح المقاومة. أي إن الاتفاق يُطلب تنفيذه من نهايته. فالمرحلة الثانية، في الرؤية الإسرائيلية، ليست مرحلة سياسية، بل أمنية خالصة، هدفها تفكيك قوة المقاومة مع الإبقاء على حق التدخل العسكري متى شاءت، ومن دون أي التزام بجدول زمني أو ضمانات لرفع الحصار.

في هذا السياق، لا حديث عن سيادة فلسطينية حقيقية، بل عن إدارة خدمات فلسطينية تعمل تحت سقف السيطرة الإسرائيلية. وهكذا يتحول الإعمار من التزام أخلاقي وإنساني إلى أداة ابتزاز وضغط سياسي، تُقدَّم فيها الحياة اليومية مقابل التخلي عن الحقوق الوطنية.

أما الولايات المتحدة، فرغم خطابها “الناعم” حول الاستقرار، فإن موقفها لا يختلف جوهريًا عن الموقف الإسرائيلي. فالإعمار، والانسحاب، وأي حل سياسي، جميعها مشروطة بنزع سلاح المقاومة، وكأن القضية الفلسطينية ليست قضية شعب تحت الاحتلال، بل ملف أمني يجب ضبطه. وفي هذا الإطار، تُعاد صياغة أفكار الإدارة الدولية أو مظلة “الاستقرار”، بما يعني عمليًا الانتقال من احتلال مباشر إلى وصاية دولية بطابع أمريكي وروح صهيونية، وتأجيل جديد للسيادة الفلسطينية.

ماذا يعني ذلك لغزة؟

يعني مساعدات محدودة، تشغيلًا جزئيًا للحياة، وتحسينات خدمية نسبية، مقابل جمود سياسي كامل: لا دولة، لا سيادة، ولا أفق وطني. انتقال من حرب مفتوحة إلى هدنة هشة قابلة للانفجار في أي لحظة، حيث يبقى القصف احتمالًا دائمًا بفعل سياسة إسرائيل في صناعة الأزمات.

غزة لا تحتاج فقط إلى إسمنت وحديد. غزة تحتاج إلى أفق سياسي وضمانات حقيقية بأن دماء الشهداء لن تتحول إلى بند تفاوضي في مقاربات أمنية عقيمة.

فهل تمثل المرحلة الثانية طريقًا للتعافي والسلام العادل؟

أم صيغة جديدة لإدارة الأزمة وإعادة تشكيل غزة بالقوة السياسية بعد فشل إخضاعها بالحرب عسكريا؟

الاتحاد الفلسطيني لأمريكا اللاتينية (UPAL)

16 كانون الثاني / يناير 2026