“‘This war is the result of a coup.’”

The long, steady Zionist takeover in Washington is now complete. There is no longer any flinching from this.

The having and the had. (The White House.)

15 APRIL—We were as stunned as many others to read the closely reported account of how, minute-by-minute, Bibi Netanyahu led the Trump regime into war with Iran when it appeared in The New York Times a little more than a week ago. The two correspondents who produced this work chose the most powerful device available to journalists: The reporting evokes compelling visual images. Images are immediate and force recognitions. They do not bear interpretation as language does. There is no turning away from them.

And there is no turning away from what the Times piece shows us: That the leader of a racist, collectively crazed terror state, a man who is self-evidently psychotic in our view, has taken control of the Executive Branch of the U.S. government.

What follows is a piece that appeared Tuesday in Global Bridge, the independent Swiss journal. There have since been further revelations that, to us, could not be more sobering for the gravity of their implications. During his failed negotiations with the Iranians in Pakistan last weekend, J.D. Vance consulted not only with President Trump—11 telephone calls in the 21 hours of talks—but reportedly also with Netanyahu in Jerusalem. In a videoed appearance subsequently broadcast on Israeli television, the Israeli leader boasted—this in Hebrew—that Vance called him while en route back to Washington to give a full account of what transpired in Islamabad and noted that he, Vance, and other members of the Trump regime, “report to me daily.”

The Iran war faces Americans with many new realities. The limits of U.S. power is one of them, and we will address this in weeks to come. The more immediate truth is the abject surrender of American sovereignty by the hand of a president more beholden to the Zionist state than any other in history. As Americans are able fully to see this for the first time, they are also confronted now with realities from which, with media’s complicity, they have for decades averted their eyes, or shrugged off, or pretended were not of consequence, or to which they have otherwise acquiesced. It is in this that what The Times just forced Americans to look at is of a magnitude it is hard to overstate.

AIPAC’s systematic corruption of Congress and many elections to it: This is a very old story. So is the Zionists’ insidious corruption of mainstream media and, by equally subtle means, public discourse altogether. Lately we witness Zionist takeovers of many American media, attacks on free speech and association in the name of combatting a phantom wave of anti–Semitism, the criminalization of criticism of Israel by way of a preposterous definition of “anti–Semitism.” And on and on.

With the Zionists’ assertion of control over the White House, Americans must now recognize—must if they are to save their crumbling republic, we mean to say—that all of this amounts to a long, systematic attack on their sovereignty. It is obvious now, if it has not been to date, that Zionist ideology is inimical to America’s democratic ideals—representative government, civil liberties, the separation of powers and of church and state. Ridding the government of Zionist control and influence—top-to-bottom, at federal, state and municipal levels—must be the beginning of any restoration project worthy of the term.

Two cases in point to bring these thoughts home. One, all those acting in the Zionist state’s behalf—the Israel lobbies, the Adelsons and others with dual citizenship—should be registered as foreign agents and monitored accordingly. Two, media ownership should be similarly regulated.

The creep of Zionist influence into so many aspects of American life has been a calculated operation conducted over many years. This is the bitter truth that now confronts us. The same is true of Trump we now know (if we didn’t already): The Israelis, by much evidence, determined as soon as he entered national politics that he was sufficiently pliable, sufficiently susceptible to flattery and persuasion, altogether sufficiently stupid to serve their interests—the ultimate among the “useful idiots.” This is the purpose he has just served in following Israel into “Bibi’s war.”

Why has he, Trump, acted so diametrically against his own interests as well as America’s and, indeed, the world’s? This is not clear and may never be. But the thought that the Mossad has a file on Trump that locates him well inside the Epstein mess grows more plausible the deeper Trump digs himself and his country into his hole. Study the photograph atop this piece: To us it is highly suggestive that a cynical exercise in blackmail may be at work between these two men—one victimizer turning another into a victim.

We have chosen to publish the piece that follows as it appeared yesterday but for minor editing adjustments.

—The Editors.

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Patrick Lawrence.

13 April—The Israeli regime’s deep penetration into the U.S. government is not a new story, if this is not to state the obvious. Via the Zionist lobbies in Washington, Israel more or less owns both houses of Congress. The same is emphatically true of the Trump administration itself: Israel and its Zionist supporters in the United States have groomed Trump since he began his rise in national politics 11 years ago. Wealthy American Jews acting in Israel’s behalf donated $90 million to Donald Trump’s first campaign for the presidency, in 2016, and at least $100 million to his second. Israel owns Donald Trump.

These are known facts. But one must look very hard to find reference to them in mainstream media or in America’s public discourse altogether. No, Israel’s corruption of American politics and power is part of what I call the Great American Unsayable—a collection of truths too bitter to be acknowledged publicly other than rarely.

I realize that this state of affairs may seem peculiar to non–Americans, but the Great Unsayable has been with us a long time, swelling to its currently grotesque size since the policy cliques in Washington set about consolidating an empire after the 1945 victories—an empire Americans are not supposed to see and, so, are not supposed to speak of. The consequence of this collective unconsciousness is the “empire of illusion,” a phrase I borrow from Chris Hedges’s 2009 book, within which Americans live.

I come to a recent entry in the inventory of Great Unsayables. It is evident to anyone paying attention that “Trump’s war,” as the U.S.–Israeli aggression against Iran is commonly termed, is not Trump’s war: It is Bibi Netanyahu’s war. But this cannot be said other than in dissident circles and in independent media. To call this Bibi’s war, or Israel’s war, would be to acknowledge that Americans are wasting billions of dollars to fight a foreign country’s fight, that the United States is daily breaching international law in behalf of this foreign country, and that Americans are already dying to advance the expansionist ambitions of an immoral regime dedicated to a brutalizing dominance over its West Asian neighbors.

Most of all, and not to be missed, to call the U.S.–Israeli operation “Israel’s war” or “Bibi’s war” instead of “Trump’s war” would be to say in two words that the Zionist regime, after decades of intervention into American politics, is now in direct control of the White House. And this has been very high among the Great Unsayables since Trump began his second term in office—as it was, indeed, while Joe Biden enabled the Zionists’ genocide in Gaza.

And now at last this Great Unsayable has been said. Now Americans have had Israel’s takeover of the Executive Branch of the U.S. government forced in their faces. Decades of insidious Israeli subterfuge had already begun coming to the surface, and now there can be no more flinching, no more denials, no more leaving this bitter truth unsaid. In the best outcome, Americans can begin the work of purging their crumbling republic of the poison Israel and its numerous American allies have injected into it since the State of Israel declared itself 78 years ago next month.

This important moment came suddenly and from an unlikely source. The New York Times has long been known among Americans as “the hometown paper of American Jewry,” as one of its senior reporters put it some years ago, and it has assiduously avoided critical coverage of “the Jewish state.” But, reflecting an ever-more-evident divide among American Jews since the Netanyahu regime began taking Israel to extremes of barbarity and criminality, it is The Times that has finally forced the shocking extent of Israel’s influence in American politics, all the way up to the White House, into public discourse—from the Unsayable to the Sayable, to stay with my terminology.

Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, two Times White House correspondents, published a long investigation into the Trump regime’s Iran deliberations on 7 April under the headline, “How Trump Took the U.S. to War With Iran.” I know little of Swan, who joined The Times only recently. Of Haberman I have long been critical for her apparent inability to keep her ad hominem contempt of Trump out of her work. But she and Swan have produced an exceptional piece of journalism, well-deserving of the worldwide attention it has received since The Times published it.

Reporting with singular diligence, Haberman and Swan begin by reproducing the scene in the White House Situation Room on 11 February, during the most recent of Bibi Netanyahu’s numerous visits to the United States since Trump took office 15 months ago. On this occasion the Israeli prime minister laid out his case for the joint U.S.–Israelis attack that began 17 day later.

It is unheard-of, I should note, for a foreign leader to be permitted into the Situation Room, the sanctum sanctorum of those who plan and execute U.S. policy. This meeting was highly classified such that Trump’s cabinet beyond his innermost circle knew nothing of it. Congress, legally responsible for authorizing war, knew nothing of it. And here we see the Israeli prime minister not only present at this momentous occasion: He was in charge of it.

The Times’s correspondents, by way of numerous interviews with those present, bring readers right into the room as Netanyahu presents his proposed plan for the operation. What they recount is shocking. This is the moment when Bibi Netanyahu, long adept at manipulating America’s pitifully manipulable 47^th president, set the course for the 28 February attack.

Here is Haberman and Swan’s description of the gathering:

Mr. Trump sat down, but not in his usual position at the head of the room’s mahogany conference table. Instead, the president took a seat on one side, facing the large screens mounted along the wall. Mr. Netanyahu sat on the other side, directly opposite the president.

Appearing on the screen behind the prime minister was David Barnea, the director of Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, as well as Israeli military officials. Arrayed visually behind Mr. Netanyahu, they created the image of a wartime leader surrounded by his team.

What follows is an account of the case Netanyahu made for a war against the Islamic Republic. It consisted of a four-part progression: The operation would assassinate the Iranian leadership, destroy the nation’s military, provoke a popular uprising, and complete a “regime change” that would put in place new leaders favorable to Israel and the West. The Israeli leader was unsparing with the fear-mongering to which he always resorts in his dealings with American officials: Iran was a week away from possessing a nuclear weapon, its missiles would be capable of hitting Europe with it, and soon after that it would be capable of attacking the United States.

Others in the room—chief among them Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, C.I.A. Director John Ratcliffe, and Daniel Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff—questioned Netanyahu about potential risks, but none expressed their conclusions. The key moment belonged to Trump. “Sounds good to me,” Haberman and Swan report him as saying.

In those four words—casually delivered, in the American idiom the words of someone shrugging in deference to the superior knowledge of others—we can read the extent of Donald Trump’s subservience to the power Israel has exerted over him the whole of his career in national politics.

There were more meetings among those present at the Israeli prime minister’s 11 February presentation. With the single exception of Hegseth, a fanatical warmonger as obsessed as Netanyahu with Iran’s destruction, all of those just named judged the prime minister’s four-part plan one or another degree of reckless. Ratcliffe, the C.I.A. director, called parts of it “farcical.” Secretary of State Rubio called it “bullshit.” But none of those who questioned Netanyahu’s fanciful projections shared their views with Trump. All of them, as well as others in the room, owed their political careers to the Zionist lobbies and wealthy Jewish donors. They were, in American parlance, Israeli “cutouts.” Israel owns them, too.

On 26 February a final meeting took place in the Situation Room. J.D. Vance, Trump’s vice-president and the only figure in Trump’s inner circle explicitly to oppose an attack against Iran, had been absent from the earlier sessions but was present this time. Trump went around the table asking for the advice of others. He got back the mildest of hesitations but no more. The Times quotes Vance saying, “You know I think this is a bad idea, but if you want to do it, I’ll support you.”

Haberman and Swan on the meeting’s final minutes:

Everyone deferred to the president’s instincts. They had seen him make bold decisions, take on unfathomable risks and somehow come out on top. No one would impede him now.

“I think we need to do it,” the president told the room. He said they had to make sure Iran could not have a nuclear weapon, and they had to ensure that Iran could not just shoot missiles at Israel or throughout the region.

General Caine told Mr. Trump that he had some time; he did not need to give the go-ahead until 4 p.m. the following day.

Aboard Air Force One the next afternoon, 22 minutes before General Caine’s deadline, Mr. Trump sent the following order: “Operation Epic Fury is approved. No aborts. Good luck.”

■

The New York Times’s work on what led up to the decision to attack Iran has opened a lot of American eyes and shifted the terms of the American debate on Israel. But read the headline atop the Haberman and Swan piece: The Times still ascribes to Trump the decision to go to war. It is still “Trump’s war,” so far as The Times has it, even as Netanyahu dictated its terms and Trump did no more than sign the order authorizing the Zionists’ plan.

Old illusions die long deaths.

Neither did The Times, as is so often its wont, provide the history and context of the 11 February meeting in the Situation Room and the deliberations that followed. There is no mention of the Zionist connections of everyone present during these events, or the Israelis’ cultivation of Trump since he appeared on the national scene as the most likely American political figure to oblige the Zionist regime in its long effort to persuade the Americans to attack a war against the Islamic Republic. 11 February, if readers will forgive an old cliché, was the tip of an iceberg and must be understood as such—the culmination of a subterfuge operation that has been under way for decades.

Max Blumental, the founding editor of The Grayzone, has done superlative work exposing this long history. A 19–minute interview he recently gave to CGTN, the English-language channel of China Global Television Network, is here. “Everyone around Trump represents Israel’s interests,” Blumenthal remarks at one point.

And here, discussing the 11 February meeting among much else, is part of a 40–minute interview Blumenthal gave Glenn Diesen, over the weekend:

That meeting was the product of years and years of cultivation, manipulation, grooming, threats, rewards, carrots and sticks from Israel and its cutouts in the United States, who are the very figures who surround Trump. It was essentially a coup, and this war is the result of a coup.

Shortly after The Times piece appeared Mark Warner, a conservative Democratic senator from Virginia, accused Trump of “outsourcing U.S. foreign policy.” This is further than anyone in the mainstream parties has previously gone in saying the Unsayable. There is now talk on Capitol Hill and among liberal Jewish organizations of imposing limits on U.S. arms shipments to Israel.

Senator Warner’s perfectly accurate assertion remains merely a phrase for now. And as Max Blumenthal has pointed out on “X,” proposals to circumscribe weapons supplies to the Zionist state so far amount to politically convenient “deceptions” that leave U.S. military support for Israel more or less intact. But there is movement now on a question wherein there has been none for many decades. I do not see how the influence of Israel and its Zionist supporters in the United States can any longer remain among America’s Great Unsayables. The truth of the U.S.–Israeli relationship, as it has devolved over many years has at last been named. And naming things properly, even if cautiously or circumspectly, is a prerequisite to acting upon them.

Footnote. At writing there are reports emerging that the conditions Vice–President Vance represented to the Iranians while in Islamabad last weekend were dictated—directly or via President Trump—by the Israelis. This is a regime that remains fully the captive of the Zionist state.

■

Cara Marianna contributed invaluable editorial guidance and research.

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