Jaafar Ashtiyeh: This Palestinian Photojournalist Has Long Documented Israeli Violence. This Time, It Nearly Killed Him

 

Ashtiyeh. "I'm the most active and veteran photographer in the West Bank and I've never faced dangers like this." Photo Alex Levac

Jaafar Ashtiyeh, an acclaimed West Bank press photographer, has been wounded frequently in the course of his work. But nothing prepared him for what settlers did to him

Gideon Levy & Jaafar Ashtiyeh / AFP (photos), Haaretz, 8/11/2025

 

Jaafar Ashtiyeh has seen and photographed the final expressions of innumerable people drawing their last breath. He will never forget them. In the course of nearly 30 years of work as a photographer for the French news agency AFP in the West Bank, he has captured thousands of images of sadness, of human suffering, of death, of peace, of hope, of victory, even of happiness.

 

It's hard for him to choose which of them best encapsulates his life's work. But when pressed, he finally chooses choose one – of an elderly woman hugging the trunk of an olive tree – which he took in 2006 and has since become iconic.

 

This veteran war photographer has documented virtually everything that has happened in the occupied and suffocated West Bank in recent decades. About a month ago, while documenting Palestinians harvesting their olive crop, he was attacked by a gang of violent settlers. They set his car afire before his eyes, and if he hadn't run for his life he's certain they would have killed him.

 

We met last week in a café in the town of Huwara, near Nablus, not far from the scene of the crime: groves owned by inhabitants of the village of Beita. Ashtiyeh doesn't have a new car yet and he's barely gone back to work since the assault. Signs of shock, of the consequences of the attack and above all of helplessness he feels are still visible even on this warhorse.

Jaafar Ashtiyeh's car burns in the village of Beita on October 10. He's "not for or against anyone," he says. His job, he explains, has always been simply to take pictures. "Some soldiers understood that – others called us terrorists." 

 

He was born 57 years ago in the village of Salem, not far from Nablus, and still lives there with his family. For a few years he served as deputy head of the local council on a volunteer basis. Since coming of age, he has never been arrested or gotten into trouble with the Israeli security forces. As a photographer for an international news agency, he says, he maintains neutrality.

 

Ashtiyeh never studied photography – he studied economics in a Nablus college – but in 1996 started to work for AFP. He had rented a camera and photographed scenes at Joseph's Tomb. The prestigious agency published the shots and he has been employed there ever since. The BBC once chose one of his pictures as photograph of the year.

 

Hamlets in Spain and Portugal Unite Against Europe’s Rush for Strategic Minerals

Luis Velasco and Yolanda Clemente, Alconchel, El País, 20/09/2025
Translated by Tlaxcala

Residents share strategies to prevent the opening of mines that would destroy their environment and way of life: “We are a territory sacrificed to economic interests.”

Graffiti against mines on a European investment sign for rural development, in Alconchel (Badajoz).

Photo Luis Velasco

The Iberian Peninsula has become a key piece in Europe’s strategy for obtaining essential minerals used to manufacture everything from batteries to ammunition.
Of the 60 projects approved by Brussels, 11 are located in municipalities across Spain and Portugal, where fear of new extractivist mines has sparked a grassroots alliance to defend their ways of life.

In Assumar, a Portuguese village of 600 inhabitants located 20 kilometers from the border with southern Extremadura, the silence is broken only by four workers standing on scaffolding as they repair a façade. One of them climbs down slowly when asked about critical minerals in the Alentejo region. “There was a mine a few years ago. They say they’re exploring again, but I don’t know anything,” he types into Google Translate.

Rumors of these explorations cross the Guadiana River into the plains of the Olivenza region (Badajoz), where locals are more familiar with the European plan to extract substances such as lithium, tungsten, or rare earths.
Rubén Báez, 51, coordinator of the anti-mining platform, accuses the company Atalaya Mining — heir to the rights of the Riotinto mine in Huelva — of carrying out illegal drilling on land protected by the Natura 2000 Network.
He says by phone that “it’s normal” that people on the other side of the border aren’t aware of the explorations:
“No administration explains anything. It’s the same company trying to build a mining belt from Aguablanca to Jerez de los Caballeros.”

The 2021 expropriation order served on a resident of Alconchel (population 1,600) to search for gold and copper on his property revealed the truth in all its details: institutional silence, stealthy drilling, and alleged legal leniency in environmental impact reports.
There is little shade to shelter from the 39°C summer heat in this hamlet of white houses and red roofs. The terrace of Bar La Piscina becomes the best refuge from the sun.
Eli Correa, a 33-year-old councilor from the Popular Party, and José María, a 44-year-old cattle rancher, remember that moment.
“If it hadn’t been for the attempted expropriation, we would never have learned about Atalaya’s plans,” says Correa.

 

Explorations Underway, Not Yet Declared Strategic

The splashing of children in Alconchel’s swimming pool accompanies the councilor’s concerns:
“I don’t want to live with a mine a hundred meters from my house. Nor do I want the water we all depend on here to be polluted. I want my town to develop, but not at any cost.”

The lack of information — as in Assumar — led José María to walk across the dehesa [communal woodland pasture] that sustains the villages in this border region with Portugal, long afflicted by depopulation and unemployment.
“We brought the exact coordinates and photos of the drilling sites to the town hall (PSOE). They only had permission for one property, but they used it as an excuse to enter others,” he claims.
José María says Atalaya Mining was fined €4,000 by the Guadiana River Basin Authority (CHD) for allegedly illegal drilling.

The company told this newspaper that it has no intention of declaring the project strategic, and that all exploration campaigns carried out since 2021 have “all the necessary permits,” being the only activity in the area “verified by numerous official inspections.”
They add that these drills are “minimally invasive and environmentally respectful.”
According to Báez, however, the company continues to carry out surveys under a license that has already expired.
“As soon as they can declare it strategic, they will,” the coordinator says flatly.

The regional government, led by María Guardiola of the Popular Party in coalition with Vox, declined to comment on the environmental protection of this land or on the drilling permits.
On its website, the Junta de Extremadura presents mining as an opportunity to “promote economic growth” in the region, where there are “more than 1,000 indicators” of potentially viable projects.
In the Sierra de Gata (Cáceres), seven new excavation projects to extract tin and lithium — both strategic raw materials — are already under evaluation, as well as in the Badajoz towns of Villanueva del Fresno and Barcarrota.

Sources from the Ministry for Ecological Transition explain that all mining initiatives must undergo the corresponding environmental assessment, during which objections may be submitted, noting that except for the Aguablanca strategic project, “the rest of the Extremaduran projects fall under regional jurisdiction.”
They add that there must be a “public information” phase so that anyone can “express possible concerns.”
The Olivenza Region Without Mines platform, which includes more than 100 members, says it has not had access to any information whatsoever.

Martín, a 52-year-old lawyer, shows photos taken on the neighboring land from his family estate in Táliga (population 660, Badajoz). The pictures show drilling rigs, a water pond, and scattered rocks.
“They entered without a permit from the town hall, in secret, like other times,” he says. “They act with the same impunity as in Mississippi Burning and force you to confront the workers. If everything is in order, why do they hide?” he asks.
According to Báez, the Táliga council has begun proceedings to impose a fine on the company following a SEPRONA (environmental police) inspection:
“The Directorate-General for Industry, Energy and Mines says the explorations are legal under their regulations, but they ignore zoning laws because, they claim, it’s not their responsibility.”

Fear Across the Peninsula

The fear that Europe’s goal of reducing dependence on countries like China will justify future mining projects is spreading across the peninsula.
It has unsettled hundreds of scattered towns and hamlets on both sides of the border — from the mountains of Galicia and northern Portugal to the valleys of Castile and León and all the way down to Andalusia.
This anxiety led to the creation, in 2023, of the Iberian Mining Observatory (MINOB), where the Olivenza platform and other Spanish and Portuguese villages seek legal support to curb the extractivist fever.

 

The Iberian Peninsula: A Zone for Rare Mineral Exploitation

Joam Evans, MINOB’s coordinator, answers the phone from Galicia, where metal mining threatens, according to him, the livelihoods of more than a thousand shellfish-harvesting families.
He says the European Commission and the Spanish Ministry cited reasons of “security and defense” to deny access to the environmental impact reports of strategic projects requested earlier this year.
Evans points to a shift in the official narrative:
“The green transition is outdated. Now they speak of the need for rearmament. The two tungsten mines — a material used to make ammunition and armor — have a disastrous record of labor rights violations and corruption.”

Adriana Espinosa, a mining expert at MINOB and a member of Friends of the Earth, also criticizes the European plan.
“We are not going to depend less on China, nor will imports from the Global South decrease because of these 60 strategic projects,” she insists.
Espinosa also denounces that local groups are given “too little time” to analyze the technical jargon of the environmental reports:
“We demand transparency from Europe, from the Spanish government, and from the autonomous regions,” she emphasizes.

 

Where Are Strategic Minerals Used?
Percentages indicate the proportion by weight of the mineral in the total weight of the device.
Source: Visual Capitalist, SFA Oxford, UN Environment. El País.

 

Carla Gomes, 43, speaks from Covas do Barroso, a hamlet of 350 inhabitants in the municipality of Boticas, northern Portugal.
Residents have been fighting since 2018 to stop “Europe’s largest open-pit lithium mine,” now declared strategic by Brussels, which has rendered agricultural land unusable, according to Gomes.
They have encountered the same institutional opacity as their counterparts in Olivenza:
“The Portuguese government never informed us about the exploration permits. What exists is a project with no environmental or social guarantees,” Gomes says over the phone.

The local citizens’ platform that Gomes belongs to is also part of MINOB, which is holding its annual meeting this October in Covas do Barroso.
“We share strategies, but above all the same feeling — that we are a territory sacrificed for economic and political interests,” she says of the coordination with Spanish villages.

 

Demonstrations against the lithium mine in Covas do Barroso, Portugal,  and against the government decree of administrative servitude for one year authorizing the Savannah company to expropriate private land
More photos

The Spanish Ministry for Ecological Transition insists that mining activity “can be a very important tool against depopulation.”
Spain’s national plan, approved in 2022, aims to open more mines in response to the “exponential demand” for strategic raw materials expected in the coming years.

Night cools the air in Olivenza (population 12,000, Badajoz).
Emilio, Susan, and Quini — three teachers who belong to the local anti-mining platform — talk over a cold beer and some nuts.
An idea hovers in the air: Extremadura is everyone else’s pantry.
“Europe wants what we have here,” says Susan.
Quini picks up the thread: “They’re going to mortgage the future of many generations.”
Emilio sums it up before paying the bill:
“They see us as a cow to be milked. People live here. We have to fight for the life of our region. If you don’t fight for this, what will you fight for?”

The Rise of the Thielverse & the Surveillance State US on the way to technofascism

 Open Transcript

Tucumán, Argentina: The Zionist octopus extends its tentacles in all directions, from the Jewish community to State institutions

 Rubén Kotler, 30/10/2025

Rubén Kotler (b. 1974) is an Argentine historian, Jewish anti-Zionist, and specialist in the recent history of Tucumán. He is cofounder of the Argentine Oral History Association and coadministrator of the Latin American Oral History Network. He also co-wrote and conducted the historical research for the documentary El Tucumanazo, which explores the workers’ and students’ uprisings in Tucumán. https://www.deigualaigual.net/

Israeli historian Ilan Pappé defines a lobby as “the influence exerted to change a government’s policy or to alter public opinion.” In his recent book, Lobbying for Zionism on Both Sides of the Atlantic , he analyzes the history of the Zionist lobby between the United States and the United Kingdom. Zionist penetration in Latin America dates back to the first half of the twentieth century and has been essential to the survival of the State of Israel and its policies of genocide, ethnic cleansing, apartheid, colonialism, expansionism, racism, and Islamophobia—the backbone upon which the self-proclaimed Jewish state is built, to the detriment of the Palestinian people.
This colonial framework is sustained by Jewish-Zionist communities worldwide. Such dynamics can be observed, under closer inspection, in local communities such as that of Tucumán, Argentina.

Argentina’s smallest province hosts a small but influential Jewish-Zionist community, where both Ashkenazi and Sephardic heritages coexist. Its institutions range from several synagogues and schools to a club called Unidad Sionista (“Zionist Unity”) and a cemetery. The main community school—where I myself studied during my school years—maintains a dual curriculum, and its Jewish-Zionist education is a key element in maintaining and reinforcing communal support for Israel.

The Jewish educational programs, far removed from religious orthodoxy, are designed to foster a deeply Zionist identity.Argentine national holidays are celebrated with equal emphasis to Jewish holidays, imbuing them with a nationalist narrative that rivals that taught in schools in the colonial enclave of Israel itself. Zionist influence in the religious Jewish world has been so profound that even Reform congregations  have included a prayer asking God to protect the Israeli army in their religious services.

 

Images from a “Patriotic Israeli” School Ceremony in Tucumán
(Author’s Archive)

At the same time, a scholarship system funds initiation trips to the self-proclaimed Jewish state—as if to a kind of Disney World. Combined with a tightly woven network of local institutions, this reinforces a sense of Israel as a “second homeland,” and for some, as an imagined nation that serves as refuge from a potential apocalyptic repetition of a “second Holocaust.”

The bombings of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires (1992) and the AMIA (1994) strengthened the narrative of a possible “Holocaust” in Argentina. Since 1994, Jewish-Zionist institutions have maintained external walls around their buildings “to prevent car bomb explosions.” For thirty years, Argentina’s Jewish-Zionist community has awaited a “third attack” as though waiting for the Messiah.

The oath sworn by soldiers of the world’s most criminal army at Masada, in occupied Palestine—pledging that Zion will never fall again—is replicated with equal fervor in Jewish-Zionist schools.

In Argentina, there exists a notorious pro-Zionist lobbying institution known as the Delegación de Asociaciones Israelitas Argentinas (DAIA)—the Delegation of Argentine Jewish Associations—whose initial purpose was to protect Jewish interests in Argentina. Nothing could be further from reality: DAIA defends Zionist interests in the country. It is also one of the key promoters of the idea that anti-Zionism is equivalent to anti-Semitism, as we will see later.

Kirchnerist José Jorge Alperovich (b. 1955) served as governor of Tucumán three times between 2003 and 2015. In November 2019, he was criminally charged with sexual abuse, and in 2024 he was sentenced to sixteen years in prison and permanently disqualified from holding public office.

To understand Zionist penetration in Tucumán over recent years—functioning as a kind of fifth column that justifies and accompanies genocide—we must consider the political landscape. Provincial governments since 2003 have maintained firm economic, cultural, political, and social ties with Israel.

Alperovich, the son of a Jewish-Zionist family from Tucumán belonging to the commercial elite, became a paradigmatic case in a country whose official religion is Roman Catholicism. His election was as novel as his alliances with Zionism at a global level. These ties predated his governorship but were reinforced by the inclusion of local Jewish community members in the provincial cabinet. Prominent community figures embraced Peronism as a political vehicle through which they anchored their influence and linked the provincial state to the State of Israel via a series of economic agreements.

Juan Luis Manzur (b. 1969), later governor and today the wealthiest official in the national administration, continued this line of submission to Zionism. With close, even affectionate ties to sectors such as Chabad Lubavitch, Manzur quickly made business deals with Israel in one of the colonial enclave’s most specialized areas: security.

By the end of 2018, the provincial government purchased 4,000 semi-automatic Jericho 9mm pistols with polymer frames, developed by Israel Military Industries (IMI)—a company privatized that same year and absorbed by Elbit Systems. The nine-million-dollar deal brought to Tucumán weapons identical to those used against Palestinians in the West Bank. One of these guns, in the hands of the provincial police, killed Luis Espinoza during the pandemic lockdown, when police raided a social gathering on May 15, 2020. Espinoza was kidnapped and disappeared for seven days before his body was found in another province.

But the agreements didn’t stop there. Two years before Espinoza’s death, on August 13, 2018, the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra performed in one of Tucumán’s main theaters under the sponsorship of the provincial government. I titled my commentary at the time “A Concert of Gunfire” to highlight how cultural events were being used to normalize the embrace of the Zionist state and the oppression of the Palestinian people.
The normalization of colonial structures through culture and sports is a distinctive feature of this global pattern of Zionist influence.

Peronism as an ally of Zionism

Today, Argentina’s far-right president Javier Milei is openly allied with Zionism, supporting the ongoing genocide in Palestine. Yet part of the Peronist movement hypocritically remains silent or looks away when it comes to the state’s agreements with Zionist institutions. Visits to Israel by Argentine officials have continued from one administration to another.
From Tucumán, local governments and university authorities have repeatedly signed agreements with Israel, regardless of political turnover.

Let us recall that the first international trip of Peronist president Alberto Fernández, just before the pandemic, was to Israel—to shake hands with war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu. His minister Eduardo “Wado” de Pedro, himself the son of victims of Argentina’s last civil-military dictatorship, brought the Israeli company Mekorot to Argentina to manage a strategic resource: water. De Pedro could not have been unaware of international accusations against Mekorot for its role in Israel’s apartheid system and its control of water resources in occupied Palestine.
Today, these agreements are being expanded as Milei’s ultra-liberal government seeks to privatize Agua y Saneamiento Argentino (AYSA), the national water and sanitation company. Will Mekorot take over AYSA? It is highly probable.

Health and the Hadassah Network

On October 13, 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ministry of Health of Tucumán signed a cooperation agreement with Israel’s Hadassah Medical Network. The agreement was signed by then-Minister of Health Rossana Chahla, now the mayor of the provincial capital.

According to the ministry’s website, “this agreement aims to share medical knowledge developed at Israel’s Hadassah Medical Center, to provide access to training sessions, symposiums, and lectures by professionals, as well as to integrate hospitals and health centers in Tucumán into the Hadassah Health Network.”
The objective is explicit: sharing provincial health data with an Israeli institution—an unprecedented step in such a sensitive public sector. The ministry’s note also confirmed that this relationship between the provincial government and Hadassah has existed for over fifteen years, dating back to Alperovich’s administration.

The local academy strengthens the Zionist narrative

The Zionist narrative requires its scribes. The Hasbara—Israel’s state-sponsored propaganda apparatus—deploys a wide range of tools, from funding mass media outlets to flooding social networks with influencers who mold public perception. As war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu recently declared, “Israel should buy TikTok.”

Within this strategy, academia plays a crucial role. Agreements between Argentine public universities and Zionist or pro-Zionist institutions are particularly notable.

Returning to Tucumán: on July 23, 2025, the Faculty of Law at the National University of Tucumán hosted a Hasbara-style event clearly intended to reinforce Zionist narratives—the presentation of the book Antisemitismo: Definir para combatir (“Antisemitism: Define to Combat”) by Ariel Gelblung, director of the controversial Simon Wiesenthal Center, a defender of the Zionist narrative.

The event was supported by the local DAIA and attended by university authorities, provincial government officials, and members of the judiciary—including Supreme Court justices Claudia Sbdar and Daniel Posse, journalist Álvaro José Aurane of La Gaceta, and officials Raúl Albarracín and Hugo Navas.

Notably, Gelblung’s presentation was part of a postgraduate diploma program on Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity offered by the Faculty of Law—one that makes no mention whatsoever of the ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people.

On July 25, a follow-up talk was given to local students, again promoting the conflation of anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism. In an interview with the local newspaper, Gelblung declared:

“We are living through the worst moment of anti-Semitism since the end of World War II. The conflict in the Middle East has placed Jewish communities around the world in real danger. Allowing certain masks to fall and aligning with terrorism is truly dangerous.”

For this propagandist, “Zionism is not a bad word; it is the movement for the national self-determination of the Jewish people in their ancestral land. Someone cannot claim to support self-determination for all peoples except one. That is discrimination. One cannot say, ‘I’m not anti-Semitic, I’m just anti-Zionist.’ That’s a fallacy.”

For Gelblung—and indeed for the entire Jewish-Zionist establishment—no genocide is being committed in Gaza, despite reports to the contrary from Israeli human-rights organizations such as B’Tselem. Neither Gelblung nor Tucumán’s academic or judicial authorities seem to have read the report titled “Our Genocide”. By echoing the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism, they equate it with anti-Zionism—nothing could be more false.

Since October 7, 2023, these circles have loudly insisted that the world is witnessing a surge in anti-Semitism—a claim unsupported by evidence. In Argentina, even members of parliament have been prosecuted for mentioning genocide in Palestine, accused of anti-Semitism, as happened to Vanina Biassi, deputy of the Frente de Izquierda y de los Trabajadores (Left and Workers’ Front).

Rossana Chahla (1966), intendenta (alcaldesa) de Tucumán, justicialista (peronista/kirchnerista)

Rossana Chahla (b. 1966), physician of Syrian-Lebanese origin and now mayor of San Miguel de Tucumán, has written yet another chapter in the province’s alliance with Zionism. She signed a security-training cooperation agreement with the Israeli agency Mashav for the municipal staff.

Despite protests from the group Tucumán por Palestina, the municipality proceeded with the agreement. At the height of an ongoing genocide, the mayor deepens ties with Zionist institutions.

According to the municipal website,

“The course, conducted in Spanish at the Beit Berl Institute campus near Tel Aviv, covers key topics such as coordination between municipalities and police forces, the creation of community police units, emergency management, youth work with at-risk populations, and cooperation with educational institutions, community organizations, and the private sector.”

Such agreements, mirrored throughout Latin America, exemplify what journalist Antony Loewenstein has called ‘The Palestine Laboratory’—Israel’s use of its repressive systems against the Palestinian people as showcases for its “technological advances” in security and warfare. Israel remains one of the world’s major arms exporters [8th largest exporter and 15th largest importer in the world] , selling to regimes of all kinds, including dictatorships.

A Phantom Haunting Tucumán: The Phantom of Genocide

The collective Tucumán por Palestina, made up of Palestinians, anti-Zionist Jews, artists, political and trade-union activists, and academics, has for years denounced Zionism and exposed Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people. Yet not a single line about their work has appeared in Tucumán’s main newspaper. On the contrary, whenever the Jewish-Zionist community holds public events, the same paper devotes lavish coverage to them.

In general, local media—barring rare exceptions—ignore the persistent activism that fills the capital’s streets. It is evident that Zionist influence in Tucumán extends across all three branches of government, the hegemonic press, and parts of academia.

As a son of that same Jewish community, I once again raise my voice in opposition to Zionism and genocide. Like the comrades of Tucumán por Palestina, I speak out wherever possible.

The penetration of that ghost called genocide in the province has names and faces—many of them descendants of Syrian-Lebanese families, such as the current mayor of the provincial capital. Breaking the dominant narrative, making as much noise as possible, and convincing Jewish communities around the world that Israel does not represent Judaism—in any of its religious or cultural forms—may help weaken the colonial enclave.

Withdrawing communal support, as several anti-Zionist and pro-Palestinian Jewish organizations are already doing, could contribute to the fall of a regime that for over a century has waged war, committed crimes against humanity, and perpetuated genocide and ethnic cleansing in historic Palestine and other strategic parts of the Middle East.

Demonstration in Extremadura Against Rheinmetall Death Factory: A Universal Message

Tlaxcala, 23 October 2025

From the depths of rural Spain rises a cry of anger, of violated dignity, of appeal to the conscience of old Europe: stop the manufacturers and merchants of death! On Saturday 25 October, for the second time, a demonstration will take place in front of the Rheinmetall arms factory in Navalmoral de la Mata, province of Cáceres, Extremadura, called by the collectives La Vera con Palestina and Extremadura con Palestina. Below is a summary of the documents we published in Spanish and German.

The call is titled “No al rearme, stop genocidio”—No to the rearmament of Spain and Europe, stop the genocide. Within the framework of the European Commission’s “Rearm Europe” plan, the Madrid government has committed itself to NATO’s target of 2% of GDP in military spending. The goal—dividing the governing coalition—is to reach a budget of more than 40 billion euros by 2029.
“Os parece ético trabajar para esta empresa cómplice del genocidio?” – Do you think it’s ethical to work for this company complicit in genocide?

Linking Anti-Armament Struggles and Solidarity with Palestine

The central demand: to link the struggle against rearmament with solidarity for the Palestinian people, victims of a genocide perpetrated by Israel with Western complicity. The organizers call for the creation of an internationalist social movement against militarization and the war economy.

Critique of the Western Model and a Call for Disobedience

The appeal paints an apocalyptic portrait of the modern world: the West is a decadent empire led by selfish elites (USA and Europe) who, faced with ecological and energy crises, turn to war and conquest. Rearmament is seen as a strategy to sustain the hyper-consumerist model and seize the South’s resources. Germany, once the land of “poets and thinkers,” becomes again that of “judges and executioners,” following the USA, abandoning its energy autonomy (Russian gas) to relaunch itself through arms production.

The appeal advances an economic and moral argument: every increase in military spending results in a decrease in social spending. The authors denounce a new era of austerity, comparable to that of the 2010s, and accuse Spanish governments, including socialist ones, of privatizing the common good for the benefit of the military-industrial complex.

A direct appeal is addressed to Rheinmetall workers in Extremadura:

The demands include: withdrawal of public aid to the arms industry, total embargo on weapons to Israel, breaking diplomatic relations, prosecuting involved leaders, ending European rearmament, and initiating a program of degrowth.

Rheinmetall: Symbol of Modern Warfare

The article by José Luis Ybot (El Salto, 17 September 2024) traces the history of Rheinmetall, Germany’s largest arms company, founded in the 19th century, associated with the Nazi regime, later converted to civilian production, and since 1956 again a pillar of rearmament. Since 2000, it has refocused on the military: Leopard tanks, Eurofighter Typhoons, drones, lasers, defense systems, and more.

In 2022, Rheinmetall bought Expal, a subsidiary of the Spanish group Maxam, owner of the El Gordo and Navalmoral de la Mata plants. These sites, involved in the manufacture and dismantling of antipersonnel mines, make Extremadura a “sacrificed” region in service of the war economy.

Since the war in Ukraine, Rheinmetall’s value has quintupled. Its shareholders include BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, and Bank of America. The company profits from global arms demand, particularly through its Ukrainian subsidiary created in 2023.

Investigation: Rheinmetall in El Gordo and Navalmoral

A report by Luis Velasco San Pedro (El País, 1 November 2024) shows how the village of El Gordo lives off Rheinmetall: 200 residents work there, salaries exceed 1,600 euros, and unemployment is nearly zero. But secrecy reigns. Employees sign confidentiality agreements and say: “Lo que se hace allí es top secret.”

Deputy Nerea Fernández (Unidas por Extremadura) denounces regional complicity and public funding of Rheinmetall (58,060 euros of European funds). She calls for the conversion of these factories to civilian production. For her, “the genocide in Gaza begins in Extremadura.”

Popular Mobilizations and Global Critique

The communiqué calling for the previous demonstration on 6 October 2024 urged boycott of Israel and civil disobedience: “La única forma de buscar la paz es no fabricar la guerra.” – The only way to seek peace is not to manufacture war.

Europe was described as a militarized “mega-Israel,” built on fear and dependence on the war economy.

The dossier combines investigation, manifesto, and moral plea. It denounces war capitalism and links the local struggle against Rheinmetall to the Palestinian cause. The authors assert a conviction: the fight for peace begins where weapons are made.

The message applies urbi et orbi—in Europe, North and South America, and Asia: we must stop the manufacturers and merchants of death, wherever they are, “by any means necessary.” To date, only one arms factory—Elbit Systems in Bristol, UK—has ceased operations. Credit goes to the courageous militants of Palestine Action, now banned as a “terrorist” group, with members prosecuted. The same fate befalls Palestine Action Germany, whose activists carried out symbolic actions against Elbit Systems in Ulm; five are now on trial.

Another aspect of necessary mobilization concerns the transport of arms to Israel—either ready-to-use weapons or components destined for Israeli arms factories. Protests have occurred in Marseille, Genoa, and Tangier, with others ongoing.

The cargo ship Marianne Danica, carrying 155 mm shells for Elbit Systems from Chennai, India, to Haifa, diverted from Gibraltar to Casablanca to avoid Spanish protests. Another vessel, Ocean Gladiator, carrying 163 tons of brass cartridge cases from the Wieland factory in Buffalo, USA, recently passed through the Strait of Gibraltar en route to Ashdod, with its next stop scheduled in Limassol (Cyprus) on 3 November [track it here]. We'll await it there. 

From one to another Nobel Open Letter from Adolfo Pérez Esquivel to María Corina Machado

Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Página12, 13/10 /2025
Translated by Tlaxcala

 

I send you the greeting of Peace and Good, so greatly needed by humanity and by peoples living amid poverty, conflict, war, and hunger.
This open letter is meant to express and share a few reflections.

I was surprised by your designation as Nobel Peace Prize laureate, awarded by the Nobel Committee. It brought back memories of the struggles against dictatorships across our continent and in my own country — the military dictatorships we endured from 1976 to 1983. We resisted prisons, torture, and exile, with thousands of disappeared persons, abducted children, and the death flights, of which I am a survivor.

In 1980, the Nobel Committee awarded me the Nobel Peace Prize. Forty-five years have passed, and we continue working in service of the poorest, alongside the peoples of Latin America. In their name, I accepted that high distinction — not for the prize itself, but for the commitment shared with the peoples who struggle and hope to build a new dawn.
Peace is built day by day, and we must be consistent between what we say and what we do.

At 94, I remain a student of life, and your social and political stances concern me. Therefore, I send you these reflections.

The Venezuelan government is a democracy with its lights and shadows. Hugo Chávez charted the path of freedom and sovereignty for his people and fought for continental unity — a reawakening of the Great Homeland. The United States attacked him constantly: it cannot allow any country in the Americas to escape its orbit and colonial dependence. It still views Latin America as its “backyard.”
The U.S. blockade against Cuba, lasting over 60 years, is an attack on freedom and the rights of peoples. The Cuban people’s resistance stands as a lesson in dignity and strength.

I am astonished by how tightly you cling to the United States: you must know that it has no allies or friends — only interests.
The dictatorships imposed in Latin America were orchestrated to serve its aims of domination, destroying the social, cultural, and political life of peoples striving for freedom and self-determination.
We, the peoples, resist and fight for our right to be free and sovereign, and not colonies of the United States.

The government of Nicolás Maduro lives under the constant threat of the United States and its blockade — one need only recall the U.S. naval forces stationed in the Caribbean and the danger of invasion.
You have not uttered a word, nor condemned this interference by a great power against Venezuela. Yet the Venezuelan people are ready to face the threat.

Corina, I ask you: why did you call on the United States to invade Venezuela?
Upon learning of your Nobel Peace Prize, you dedicated it to Trump — the aggressor of your own country, the man who lies and accuses Venezuela of being a narco-state, a falsehood akin to George Bush’s claim that Saddam Hussein possessed “weapons of mass destruction.”
That was the pretext to invade Iraq, plunder it, and cause thousands of deaths among women and children.
I was in Baghdad at the end of the war, in a children’s hospital, and saw with my own eyes the destruction and death caused by those who proclaim themselves defenders of freedom.
The worst form of violence is the lie.

Do not forget, Corina, that Panama was invaded by the United States, causing death and destruction to capture a former ally, General Noriega.
The invasion left 1,200 dead in Los Chorrillos.
Today, the U.S. once again seeks to reclaim control of the Panama Canal.
It is a long list of U.S. interventions and suffering inflicted upon Latin America and the world.
The veins of Latin America remain open, as Eduardo Galeano once wrote.

I am troubled that you dedicated your Nobel not to your people, but to the aggressor of Venezuela.
I believe, Corina, you must reflect and understand where you stand — whether you are merely another piece in the U.S. colonial system, submissive to its interests of domination, which can never serve the good of your people.
As an opponent of the Maduro government, your stances and choices create much uncertainty, especially when you call for a foreign invasion of your homeland.

Remember that building peace requires great strength and courage for the good of your people — a people I know and deeply love.
Where once there were shantytowns clinging to the hills, surviving in poverty and destitution, there are now decent homes, healthcare, education, and culture.
The dignity of a people cannot be bought or sold.

Corina, as the poet* says:

“Traveler, there is no path; the path is made by walking.”

You now have the chance to work for your people and build peace, not provoke greater violence.
One evil cannot be cured by a greater evil: we would have two evils and never a solution.

Open your mind and your heart to dialogue, to meeting your people.
Empty the jug of violence and build peace and unity among your people, so that the light of freedom and equality may finally enter.

*Another Machado, named Antonio (no relation to Mrs. María Corina) [Transl. n.]

Rejection of the Nobel Committee’s Decision to Award the Peace Prize to María Corina Machado

We, the undersigned, reject the decision of the Nobel Committee to award the Peace Prize to María Corina Machado, and we consider this decision an act that promotes war in Latin America and encourages terrorism.

We believe it is no coincidence that this decision was made at a time when a U.S. fleet stationed in the Caribbean threatens Venezuela. The decision to exalt a figure such as María Corina Machado is part of the media offensive preparing world public opinion to bring war to Latin America.

Those who made this decision are neither innocent nor confused. They are promoting a figure who has been involved in every attempted coup d’état, in terrorist activities, who has openly called for military aggression against Venezuela, and who represents the worst of the Venezuelan right — directly linked to international Zionism, having explicitly supported the genocide against the Palestinian people, and to the warlike wing of the Trump administration, led by Marco Rubio.

Five hundred years after the invasion of the Americas, European governments and institutions such as the Nobel Committee reaffirm through such acts their colonialist and racist practices.

We, the undersigned — who have upheld the Bolivarian Revolution and, in recent years, have held differing opinions regarding the Maduro government — today reaffirm our support for its decision to mobilize and arm the people in the face of imperialist aggression.

For us, there is no other stance than to support the Venezuelan people’s decision to rise up and defend their sovereignty and their government.

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