Goy, bye 

On November 13, 2016, following Trump’s election to President of the United States, Alexander Dugin proudly proclaimed on Facebook, “So. Washington is ours. Chisinau is ours. Sofia is ours. It remains but to drain the swamp in Russia itself.”[1] Dugin was referring to three capitals—the U.S., Moldova, and Bulgaria, respectively—which each had recently elected a leader espousing views favorable to Russia, and each having elections that took place amid concerns about Russian influence. The Trump Dossier reported that, despite conceding to having underestimated the backlash in the American media, Putin was generally satisfied with the success of their operation. As summarized in the dossier, the view of Sergei Ivanov, a senior Russian official and statesman, is that “the US had tried to divide the Russian elite with sanctions but failed, while the Russians had succeeded in splitting American hawks inimical to Russia and the Washington elite in general, half of whom had refused to endorse any presidential candidate as a result of Russian intervention.” As reported by the Washington Post, US officials said that a stream of intelligence from sources inside the Russian government indicates that Putin and his lieutenants regard their mission against the United States as “a resounding, if incomplete, success… But overall, US officials said, the Kremlin believes it got a staggering return on an operation that by some estimates cost less than $500,000 to execute.[2]

However, as a veteran counterspy in the American Intelligence Community, whom John R. Schindler of the Observer has known for years, recently asked him as a rhetorical question: “What if the real secret of the Trump campaign isn’t that it’s a Kremlin operation, rather an Israeli operation masquerading as a Russian one?”[3] In an article for Haaretz titled, “The Countless Israeli Connections to Mueller’s Probe of Trump and Russia,” the subtitle asks, “The Israel-lobbyists, Netanyahu cronies, psyops manipulators and well-connected oligarchs — could it all be just one big coincidence?”[4]

By 2015, Israel Prime Benjamin Netanyahu had given up hope in Obama for supporting his unilateral vision for a solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict, and eventually put his hope in Donald Trump. As reported by Adam Entous in “Donald Trump’s New World Order” for the New Yorker, American officials learned of on-going activity between Israel and the Trump team. While other governments assumed Clinton would win, as a former US official told Entous, “The Israelis didn’t take that opinion at all. They were working the Trump people with great energy before anybody else was engaged with them.”[5]

After dropping his bid for nomination, Ben Carson personally presented Trump with a plan from Israeli-based company called Inspiration, run by former IDF intelligence officers, which had been employed by a Super PAC for voter manipulation in swing states. A source claimed that Inspiration had received “enormous amounts” of information from the Super PAC, which it then used to devise strategies to support Trump and “float all kinds of things” about Hillary Clinton.[6]

Ronald Lauder, a close friend of Netanyahu, donated $700,000 to the National Horizon SuperPAC and the Mercer-backed Club for Growth, gave $500,000.[7] Lauder gave $1.1 million to the group Secure America Now. The organization’s biggest individual backer, at $2 million, was Robert Mercer.[8] Elliott Broidy referred to Secure America Now as “one of the groups I am working with” in an email to UAE advisor and former associate of Ronald Lauder, George Nader who was deeply implicated in the Russian collusion investigation undertaken by Robert Mueller.[9] Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen also negotiated a $1.6 million settlement with a woman impregnated by Broidy.

With Trump now in office, Netanyahu finally has the latitude to do as he wished regarding the situation in Palestine, Israeli officials told Adam Entous. [10] According to Entous, Netanyahu’s scheming involved using the common enemy of Iran to draw the support of Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Toward the end of the Obama Administration, one of the top aides of Mahmoud Abbas, the President of the Palestinian Authority, told a US official that “our worst nightmare” would be for Netanyahu to find a way to divide the Gulf states from the Palestinian cause. “Bibi’s greatest dream and Abbas’s worst nightmare could be coming true,” the former U.S. official told Entous.[11] According to Entous:

With Obama finally out of the way, Netanyahu could concentrate on getting the Trump team to embrace his grand strategy for transforming the direction of Middle Eastern politics. His overarching ambition was to diminish the Palestinian cause as a focus of world attention and to form a coalition with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to combat Iran, which had long supported Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza and had taken strategic advantage of the American folly in Iraq and the war in Syria.[12]

One of the European ambassadors at Trump’s inauguration ceremony said to Sergei Kislyak, “You are the most important ambassador here today!” Kislyak smiled and pointed at Dermer, and said, “he is the most important ambassador here today.”[13] Israeli Ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer is considered Netanyahu’s closest adviser and strategic consultant, and has been dubbed “Bibi’s brain.”[14] During the presidential campaign, Dermer spoke regularly with Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and even had some of his talking points included in Trump’s first major policy speech on Israel. Bannon became so fond of Dermer that he sometimes referred to him as “my wingman.”[15] When questioned about Bannon’s racism, Jared Kushner responded, “All I know about Steve is my experience working with him. He’s an incredible Zionist and loves Israel. He was one of the leaders in the anti-divestiture campaign.”[16]

Despite Steve Bannon’s open outreach to racists, he and Jared Kushner had been allies throughout the transition process and through the beginning of the administration. Kushner has acted as a liaison with dozens of influential figures, including Henry Kissinger, Paul Ryan, Rupert Murdoch, and, until recently, Roger Ailes, founder and former Chairman and CEO of Fox News.[17] “Every president I’ve ever known has one or two people he intuitively and structurally trusts,” explained Kissinger. “I think Jared might be that person.”[18] According to David Ignatius writing in the Washington Post, “Kushner is apprenticing for the role of Trump’s Henry Kissinger. He’s the secret emissary, the evaluator of talent, the whisperer of confidential advice. He’s the only person in this White House who Trump can’t fire, really. All these qualities strike me as beneficial, so long as Kushner uses them to make Trump a better president who learns how to compromise and govern.”[19] Kushner’s close friend Rupert Murdoch said, “I assume he’ll be in the White House throughout the entire presidency. For the next four or eight years he'll be a strong voice, maybe even the strongest after the vice president.”[20] “Jared is the worst political adviser in the White House in modern history,” Nunberg said. “I’m only saying publicly what everyone says behind the scenes at Fox News, in conservative media, and the Senate and Congress.”[21]

Bannon and Jared Kushner’s alliance broke down when Trump elevated Gary Cohn, his top economic policy adviser and Dina Powell. The battle in the White House had involved was a group of advisers Bannon derisively dubbed “the Democrats,” comprising Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump, Gary Cohn, and Dina Powell on one side. On the other were the nationalists: Bannon, Jeff Sessions, Stephen Miller, Sebastian Gorka, and Peter Navarro. Kushner’s camp called them “the crazies” or “Breitbart.”[22] Bannon was finally ousted from his White House position on August 18, 2017, in momentous event that was celebrated in the Huffington Post with the headline of “Goy, bye.” The departure was apparently related to a conflict between him and Kushner. Bannon remarked, “the Trump presidency that we fought for, and won, is over.”[23]

Back Channels

In a call on October 31, 2017, with Bannon, Trump laid the blame for the expanding scandal surrounding Mueller’s probe into Russian election interference squarely on Jared Kushner, former Trump campaign aide Sam Nunberg told Vanity Fair. “He’s taking meetings with Russians to get additional stuff. This tells you everything about Jared,” Bannon said.[24] Bannon and Kushner conflicted in early May 2018 over Trump’s plan to fire FBI director James Comey, who was leading the investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russian officials. “It’s the dumbest political decision in modern political history, bar none. A self-inflicted wound of massive proportions,” he later said. [25]

The New York Times reported that Kushner and Flynn, then Trump’s incoming national security adviser, had an undisclosed meeting at Trump Tower with Kislyak on December 1, 2016, to “establish a line of communication” between the new administration and the Russian government, the White House said.[26]Also meeting with Kislyak was Trump’s pick for Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who in his confirmation hearings said that he did not have contact with Russian officials during the 2016 US presidential campaign. According to a source familiar with the participants, Kushner also encouraged CFTNI advisors to meet with Sessions to “help him with [foreign-policy] ideas.”[27] Sessions’ official involvement with the campaign didn’t begin until March 3, 2016, when Trump named him chairman of the campaign’s national-security advisory board. In that capacity, Sessions began to speak frequently with CFTNI president Dimitri Simes. By the summer of 2016, Sessions became known in Washington as Trump’s point man for foreign policy. Sessions also met with Richard Burt, who began hosting a series of dinners for Sessions with foreign-policy thinkers at Washington’s Metropolitan Club. The first was held on June 28, 2016, and included Zalmay Khalilzad, and Bush-era Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte. On September 15, 2016, the Heritage Foundation held an invitation-only roundtable discussion with Sessions.

In March 2017, news reports revealed that Sessions had twice met with Kislyak in 2016. A former official said that the intelligence indicates that Sessions and Kislyak had “substantive” discussions on matters including Trump’s positions on Russia-related issues and prospects for US-Russia relations in a Trump administration.[28] Sessions subsequently recused himself from any investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election while some Democratic lawmakers called for his resignation.

During the transition, Flynn held secret conversations about undermining and dropping US sanctions against Russia. Trump hired Flynn as National Security Advisor despite outgoing president Obama’s direct warnings when they met in the Oval Office two days after the November election.[29] According to Flynn’s guilty plea, he was in communication throughout those discussions with a “senior members of the Presidential Transition Team” at the Mar-a-Lago resort.[30] In at least one instance, Flynn was directed by transition officials to reach out to Russia. CNN learned from sources that Kushner is the “very senior” member of the team identified in the court documents. Kushner directed Flynn to contact Kyslyak and other countries regarding the UN Security Council vote on Israeli settlements. A person familiar with the transition’s effort on the UN vote said it was well-known and a collaborative effort by various transition officials, including Reince Priebus, Steve Bannon, Flynn and Kushner, adding that none of them “ordered” or “directed” the others and all were working towards the same goal of standing by Israel.[31]

On December 29, 2016, the day President Obama announced sanctions on Russia in response to the country’s hacking efforts, Flynn and Kislyak reportedly exchanged five phone calls, and they discussed the topic of sanctions.[32] But Flynn reportedly told Vice President-elect Mike Pence and others on the Trump team that sanctions hadn’t come up in the calls, spurring them to make false statements to that effect in public. Flynn was finally forced to resign after 25 days in office, when it was revealed that he misled Vice President Pence about his contacts with Kislyak. When Flynn came under criminal investigation for his communication with the Russians, Trump sent a request from James Comey, the Director of the FBI, telling him, “he’s a good guy, I hope you can let this go.”[33]

 On May 10, 2017, a day after Trump fired Comey, Trump, Kushner, as well as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Dina Powell, and H.R. McMaster, met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak.[34] Lavrov had met first with Tillerson to discuss Ukraine, Syria and other bilateral issues. Journalists were later allowed into the Oval Office after the meeting, but instead of Lavrov and Kislyak they found Trump sitting alone with Henry Kissinger.[35] As he was entering the State Department, a reporter asked whether the dismissal of Comey “cast a shadow” over their meetings. Lavrov commented, feigning surprise and mild disagreement, “Was he fired? You are kidding. You are kidding.”[36]

The American public only found out about the meeting thanks to photos posted to Twitter by Russia’s state news agency Tass, whose photographer was the only one allowed in the meeting, while US journalists were barred from it. Trump told those attending the meeting that firing Comey, who was “crazy” and a “real nut job,” had relieved “great pressure” on him.[37] Trump also later confirmed via Twitter that during the meeting he shared information related to a potential airline plot by Islamic State, thought to involve a laptop bomb. Israeli intelligence experts were gravely concerned that Trump’s sharing of classified information with Russia may have compromised an Israeli agent.[38]

United Arab Emirates 

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is considered one of the closest US allies in the Middle East. UAE’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, also known as MBZ, is the third son of Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan (1918 – 2004), the founding father and the principal driving force behind the formation of the UAE, and the original financier of BCCI. MBZ, who widely regarded as one of the most influential Arab leaders in Washington and across the Middle East, is the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, the second-most populous city of the UAE after Dubai, and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces. MBZ may be the richest man in the world, due to his control of sovereign wealth funds worth $1.3 trillion. The military of the UAE is the most powerful of any Arab state.[39]

The Emirates is a member of the anti-ISIS coalition, and the US military has aircraft based at UAE’s Al-Dhafra Air Base. However, Arabic language newspaper al-Badil released a number of documents proving that Saudi Arabia’s new Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) and his counterpart MBZ have long been supporting the ISIS and al-Qaeda’s global operations.[40]  MBZ also helped lift his protégé Mohammed bin Salman, who has attained notoriety in the West, especially since American intelligence agencies concluded that he ordered the killing of the dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi.[41] Trump said of MBZ, “He is special. I respect him, and I’ve known him for a long time.”[42] James Mattis received permission in 2015 from the US military, after retiring from the Marine Corps, to work as a military adviser to the UAE, while he was a fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. Mattis visited the UAE about three times over the course of several years, the official said, sometimes meeting with MBZ. Mattis advised the UAE on rebuilding its military.

On February 28, 2018, the Washington Post reported that Kushner’s interim security clearance was downgraded from the top-secret to the secret level. The justification was the fact that, according to intelligence reports, officials in the United Arab Emirates, China, Israel and Mexico have privately discussed ways they can manipulate Jared Kushner, by taking advantage of his complex business arrangements, financial difficulties and lack of foreign policy experience. H.R. McMaster, Trump’s national security adviser, learned that Kushner had contacts with foreign officials that he did not coordinate through the NSC or officially report.[43]

As reported by NBC News, “Federal investigators are scrutinizing whether any of Jared Kushner’s business discussions with foreigners during the presidential transition later shaped White House policies in ways designed to either benefit or retaliate against those he spoke with, according to witnesses and other people familiar with the investigation.”[44] Robert Mueller’s is investigating Kushner’s efforts to secure financing for his family’s real estate properties, focusing specifically on his discussions during the transition with individuals from Qatar and Turkey, as well as Russia, China and the UAE. Qatari government officials in late January and early February considered turning over to Mueller what they believed was evidence of efforts of a blockade against them led by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, citing the country’s support for terrorism, but as retaliation by Kushner due to a failed deal.[45]

Officials from the UAE identified Kushner as early as the spring of 2017 as particularly manipulable because of his family’s search for investors in their real estate company, current and former officials said. In 2016, Kushner was simultaneously running his family business, Kushner Cos., and helping to oversee Trump’s campaign. One of his top business concerns was what to do with his family’s investment in 666 Fifth Ave. in New York, which the company bought under his direction for $1.8 billion in 2007, the highest price paid at the time for a U.S. office tower. Kushner and his company met with an executive of a Chinese-run insurance company, Anbang, which had bought the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. They also discussed a possible investment by the former finance minister of Qatar, who oversaw an investment fund. But after Kushner served as Trump’s senior adviser for a few months in the White House, the financing talks ended, and neither Anbang nor the Qatari fund signed when questions arose about potential conflicts of interest.[46]

Just two weeks prior to the meeting with Kislyak, on December 15, 2016, also at Trump Tower, Kushner, Flynn and Bannon met with MBZ. The meeting was arranged by MBZ’s adviser, Lebanese-American businessman and convicted pedophile George Nader. In the 1980s, Nader established the journal Middle East Insight, which often arranged meetings in Washington between Israel and Lebanon. In July 1996, Nader hosted Netanyahu shortly after his first election as prime minister.[47] Two years later, Nader served as Ronald Lauder’s assistant in failed efforts to secure a peace deal between Netanyahu and Syria's president at the time, Hafez Assad.[48]

Nader has been in court several times, charged crimes including possession of child pornography, importing child pornography, and child abuse. In 2002, he was convicted in the Czech Republic for sexually abusing 10 boys. He served one year in prison.[49] Nader, who repeatedly referred to the Saudi and Emirati princes as “my friends,” became a close ally by Trump campaign advisers, meeting frequently with Kushner, Flynn and Bannon.[50]

Nader is also a consultant to Blackwater founder Erik Prince. Prince was an avid supporter of Trump. Erik Prince is a friend of Peter Thiel and very close to Robert Mercer. Prince and Thiel were both major donors to the Make America #1 PAC after Trump became the Republican nominee.[51] In 1990, congressman Dana Rohrabacher’s staff director Paul Behrends, when he was a foreign policy adviser, invited Erik Prince to come and work in their office as an intern. After leaving Rohrabacher’s office, Prince joined the Navy SEALS before setting up Blackwater in 1997. Prince and Rohrabacher have remained close for years. Rohrabacher also did his share of advocacy for Prince. “Prince is on his way to being an American hero just like Ollie North was,” Rohrabacher said in 2007 after a House investigation raised concerns about Blackwater’s conduct.[52]

Prince appears to have particularly close ties to Bannon, appearing multiple times on Breitbart.[53] Prince told Bannon that the Trump administration should recreate a version of the Phoenix Program to fight ISIS.[54] According to Jeremy Scahill, Prince, who blames leftists and Democrats for destroying his Blackwater empire, “clearly views Trump’s vow to bring back torture, CIA-sponsored kidnapping, and enhanced interrogations, as well as his commitment to fill Guantánamo with prisoners, as a golden opportunity to ascend to his rightful place as a covert private warrior for the U.S. national security state.[55] Prince also endorsed some of Trump’s overtures to Russia, saying: “Think about it: If FDR, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, can deal with Stalin to defeat German fascism in World War II, certainly the United States of America could work with Putin to defeat Islamic fascism. We don’t have to agree with the Russians on everything, or even on a lot, but we can at least agree that crushing ISIS in the Middle East is a very good idea.”[56]

On January 17, 2017, The Intercept reported that Prince was advising Trump “from the shadows.”[57] As reported in the Washington Post, “Current and former U.S. officials said that while Prince refrained from playing a direct role in the Trump transition, his name surfaced so frequently in internal discussions that he seemed to function as an outside adviser whose opinions were valued on a range of issues, including plans for overhauling the U.S. intelligence community.”[58]

As reported by Adam Entous, the purpose of the December 15 meeting at Trump Tower was to allow MBZ to let Trump’s advisers to know that he and Mohammed bin Salman were committed to working with the new Administration to roll back Iran’s influence. MBZ aroused the suspicions of American national security officials when they learned that he had breached protocol by doing so without notifying the Obama administration of his visit to the United States.[59]

UAE and Saudi Arabia were working together behind the scenes with Mossad to counter Iranian influence.[60] Traditionally, Gulf leaders avoided contact with Israeli government officials, but MBZ believes that the Gulf states and Israel shared a common enemy: Iran. The UAE do not recognize Israel as a state and the two countries do not have diplomatic or economic relations. But the UAE and Israel are “like brothers,” said one of Abu Dhabi’s senior military general.[61] Likewise, bin Salman privately said that he was prepared to have a full relationship with Israel. In meetings with American officials in Riyadh and Washington, bin Salman routinely remarked that “Israel’s never attacked us,” and “we share a common enemy.”[62]

The UAE’s Ambassador to the United States, Yousef Al-Otaiba, has become one of the most powerful and well-connected men in Washington. Otaiba’s father was the UAE’s first Minister of Petroleum, Mana Saeed Al Otaiba, as well as a close confidant to MBZ’s father. Mana Al Otaiba, served as the president of OPEC a record six times. While in high school in Egypt, Yousef Al-Otaiba’s mentor was then US ambassador to Egypt, Frank G. Wisner, the son of CIA official Frank Wisner, who encouraged him to attend Georgetown University.[63] Otaiba is close with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other top national security officials.[64] Otaiba has lobbied in Washington for the war in Yemen, where the UAE operates torture warehouses and funds death squads.

Soon after Obama’s Inauguration in 2009, Otaiba and Sallai Meridor, who was then Israel’s Ambassador to the United States, asked Dennis Ross, the Middle East adviser, to meet with them at a Georgetown hotel, where they made their case for about the purported Iranian threat. The meeting, according to a former US official, surprised Obama’s advisers and demonstrated “a level of cooperation that was real and practical,” and went far beyond intelligence sharing.[65]

Israeli Ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer briefed Otaiba on Israel’s position on the Iran deal and tried to convince him to join the Israelis in actively opposing Obama. Toward the end of Obama’s second term, US agencies learned of phone calls between senior UAE and Israeli officials, including calls between a senior Emirati leader and Netanyahu and a secret meeting in Cyprus, which centered on countering Obama’s Iran deal. Neither the Israelis nor the Emiratis informed the Obama Administration of their discussions. “They were not telling the truth,” a former State Department official told Entous. “It’s one thing to be secret from the public. It’s another thing to be secret from the US, supposedly the closest ally of both.”[66]

Otaiba is known to be extremely close with Jared Kushner. An article in Politico reported the two were in “almost constant phone and email contact” after being introduced to each other by Tom Barrack, a Lebanese-American businessman and Trump fundraiser.[67] Kushner and Otaiba were introduced to each other by Trump’s close friend and confidant, Labenese-American Tom Barrack, a longtime friend who had done business with Otaiba. “He is the only person I know who the president speaks to as a peer,” said Roger Stone. Barrack’s first job was at the law firm of Herbert W. Kalmbach, President Richard Nixon’s personal lawyer, who sent him to Saudi Arabia in 1972 where he befriended a Saudi prince As a young lawyer, Barrack once negotiated drilling rights with Otaiba's father Mana, who was then the Emirati oil minister. Barrack’s ties to Trump extended to the his family. By 2010, Barrack had acquired $70 million of the debt owed by Kushner, on his troubled $1.8 billion purchase of a skyscraper at 666 Fifth Avenue in New York. After a call from Trump, Barrack was among a group of lenders who agreed to reduce Kushner's obligations to keep him out of bankruptcy.[68]

During the Trump campaign, Barrack was a top fund-raiser and Barrack hired Gates to help run the inauguration and then as a Washington consultant. It was also Barrack who recommended Paul Manafort as campaign manager. Barrack had first met in the 1970s when they were both working for Saudis and living in Beirut. Barrack then tried to arrange a secret meeting between Manafort and bin Salman. On May 26, 2016, Barrack wrote introducing Otaiba to Kushner, and the two met later that month. A few weeks later, on July 13, Barrack informed Otaiba that the Trump team had also removed a proposed Republican platform provision inserted to “embarrass” Saudi Arabia. The provision had called for the release of redacted pages about the kingdom in a report on the terrorist 9/11 attacks. Barrack was later named chairman of Trump's inaugural committee.[69]

Benjamin Netanyahu also secretly met with the foreign minister of the UAE, MBZ’s brother Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, at the Israeli prime minister’s hotel room in New York in in 2012.[70] Arab media reported that Mossad chief Tamir Pardo visited the UAE in May 2013 and held a number of secret meetings with MBZ, as well as several other leading Arab figures.[71] As of 2013, the UAE spent more money on lobbying than any other foreign government, in 2015, the UAE paid the US lobbying firms $13.5 million, with $6,5 million going to the Camstoll Group, that was operated by former US Treasury officials who had been responsible for relations with Gulf state and Israel as well as countering funding of terrorism, and $4.5 million to Harbor Group.[72] In August 2016, pilots from both the Israel Air Force and the UAE Air Force participated in a joint Red Flag training exercise with pilots from Pakistan and Spain, in Nevada in the United States.[73] In September 2017, Netanyahu hailed the “breakthrough” in ties with Arab countries, claiming “many levels of cooperation” existed that could not yet be exposed to the public.[74]

A group of hackers calling themselves “GlobalLeaks” stole e-mails in June 2017 from Otaiba, which show a clear picture of the back-channels the UAE has taken to ensure the country’s interests are promoted abroad. Some of the more controversial e-mails released show a link between the UAE and the Israeli political firm, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). Led by executive director Mark Dubowitz, FDD’s Iran research seeks to educate “the public and political elites in both the United States and abroad about the activities of Iran and its Syrian and Hezbollah proxies.”[75] FDD says it does this through attacking Iran’s “most vulnerable points: its worldwide media operations, its standing in the United States and Europe, its finances, and its efforts to support terrorist activities abroad.” Specifically, FDD concerns itself with Iran’s nuclear ambitions through its Iran Energy Project and Iran’s human rights abuses through its Iran Human Rights Project.

The FDD is financed by Sheldon Adelson, a billionaire ally of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and the largest donor to US President Donald Trump’s electoral campaign. Adelson exerts almost as much influence on electoral politics in the U.S. as he does in Israel. As of June 2018, Adelson was listed by Forbes as having a fortune of $43.4 billion, making him the sixteenth richest person in the world.[76] Adelson has been the largest donor of any party in both the 2012 and 2016 presidential campaigns. Adelson considered Obama an enemy of Israel, and, in the 2012 election, he and his wife, Miriam, contributed at least $93 million dollars to groups supporting the Republican Party. Officials in the U.S. and Israel said that they learned from American Jewish leaders that Adelson had vowed to spend “whatever it takes” to prevent Obama from securing a peace agreement while in office.[77]

Adelson abstained from the Republican primary season for the 2016 presidential election, but in May 2016, after it became clear that Trump was going to win the nomination, he announced a $25 million donation to Trump’s campaign, making him the largest donor to the campaign and the largest donor in the presidential election.[78] Adelson also made the largest single donation ever to an incoming president's inauguration when he gave the Trump inaugural committee five million dollars.[79] Adelson’s support, one of Trump’s senior aides said, was evidence that “the legit part of the Republican establishment was coming in big” behind Trump. “Within ten days or fifteen days, we basically secured legitimate Republican muscle. Adelson was critical.”[80]

Several of the e-mails relate to Qatar and its clear support for UAE’s enemies, including Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood and Iran. Some of the FDD e-mails talk of “political, economic, military, intelligence, and cyber tools,” that can be used to “contain and defeat Iranian aggression.”[81] Another email shows FDD senior counselor, John Hannah, requesting a meeting with Mohammad Dahlan, a security adviser to MBZ. Dahlan was chosen to head the Preventive Security Force in Gaza after the signing of the Oslo Accords. Dahlan is a former leader of the Fatah party in the Gaza Strip. Between 1981 and 1986, he was arrested by Israel and sent to prison 11 times, where he learned to speak Hebrew fluently. Following the Oslo Accords in 1993, he built up a force of 20,000 men, making him one of the most powerful men in Palestine, dealing regularly with the CIA and Israeli intelligence officials.[82] Dahlan was exiled in 2011 and fled to the UAE amid allegations he may have murdered Yasser Arafat. There he became a security adviser to bin Zayed, according to the Emirati source, and began working as an informal UAE emissary to the Kremlin, helping coordinate the UAE’s military action to cooperate with Russian interests. Dahlan is also aligned with Egyptian President el-Sisi.[83]

Psy-Group 

Dahlan had also worked closely with Erik Prince and George Nader, an advisor to MBZ who arranged the December meeting at Trump Tower.[84] Prince and MBZ have known each other for several years. When Blackwater was faced with mounting legal problems in the United States, Prince resettled in the UAE in 2010, and was hired by MBZ to put together an 800-member battalion of foreign troops for the UAE, in a deal worth $529 million. Muslim soldiers, Prince warned, could not be counted on to kill fellow Muslims. Colombians, along with South African and other foreign troops, were trained in the desert by retired American soldiers and veterans of the German and British special operations units and the French Foreign Legion.[85]

The New York Times reported that on August 3, 2016, Prince had arranged a previous meeting between Donald Trump Jr., and George Nader, as well as Stephen Miller and Joel Zamel, Israeli specialist in social media manipulation. Nader Donald Trump Jr. that the princes of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were eager to help his father win election as president. Zamel’s company, Psy-Group, which employed several Israeli former intelligence officers, specialized in collecting information and shaping opinion through social media. Psy-Group has also been linked with Black Cube, the Mossad-connected private intelligence firm that attracted notoriety for its work surveilling and assisting with efforts to slander the reputations of women accusing Harvey Weinstein of sexual violence and journalists reporting on them. Zamel had worked for the Emirati royal court as a consultant as well. The New York Times reported that one of Zamel’s firms had previously worked for Oleg Deripaska and Dmitry Rybolovlev, who hired the firm for online campaigns against their business rivals.[86] According to the firm’s marketing materials, Psy-Group offered clients an array of services, including honey traps as well as “deep web and Darknet capabilities.”[87]

As reported in the New York Times, Rick Gates, Paul Manafort’s longtime business partner, who pleaded guilty to several of the charges of financial fraud and tax evasion, sought out the services of Psy-Group in 2016.[88] Gates first heard about Psy-Group from Arthur J. Finkelstein’s associate, George Birnbaum, a Republican consultant with close ties to current and former Israeli government officials, who managed Finkelstein’s masterminding of Vikor Orbán’s 2010 reelection campaign in Hungary. In 1998, Birnbaum moved to Israel to serve as a consultant to Benjamin Netanyahu, becoming his chief of staff, and afterwards formed a partnership with Finkelstein. In 1996, Birnbaum helped Finkelstein engineer Netanyahu’s election victory over Shimon Peres. Since then, Birnbaum has consulted and managed campaigns throughout Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and South America. In 2013, Birnbaum was integral in advising Netanyahu and Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman to unite their two parties and run as a single party in the Israeli national elections, a strategy that helped re-elect Netanyahu as prime minister. Early in 2015, he worked on the national campaign in Israel to re-elected Netanyahu to an unprecedented fourth term. Members of the Chabad synagogue in central Budapest recall the Orthodox Birnbaum attending there for prayers and Shabbat lunch, so he could be in walking distance of Orbán’s Saturday rallies.[89]

Birnbaum worked directly with Psy-Group employees to refine the proposals for the Trump campaign. Psy-Group promised that “veteran intelligence officers” would use various methods to assess the voting inclinations of the roughly 5,000 delegates to the Republican nominating convention. After searching through social media accounts and other data to compile psychological profiles of the designated delegates, more than 40 Psy-Group employees were to use “authentic looking” fake online identities to assault 2,500 targets with tailored messages. Psy-Group also promised to obtain “unique intel” by various means, including “covert sources” and “tailored avatars.” A second proposal focused on gathering information about Hillary Clinton and ten of her associates through publicly available information and unspecified “complementary intelligence activities.” A third document emphasized “tailored third-party messaging” aimed at minority, suburban female and undecided voters in battleground states. It promised to create and maintain fake online personas that would deliver messages highlighting Mr. Trump’s merits and Mrs. Clinton’s weaknesses or revealing “rifts and rivalries within the opposition.”[90]

The Wall Street Journal reported on April 2, 2018, that Mueller’s investigators have inquired about the work done by Zamel’s private consulting company, Wikistrat, on behalf of the UAE. After studying counter-terrorism, Zamel founded Wikistrat, a geostrategic analysis and business consultancy, in Israel in 2010. Although its website lists its location as Washington, the company was run out of Israel. Zamel “knew a whole lot of people there [in Israel]. One of his connections was the former head of the [Israeli] intelligence directorate, Amos Yadlin.”[91] Of Zamel, a former employee said, “He was very secretive, everything was highly compartmentalized… It was clear that he kept the entire company in the dark. Even [company executives] didn’t have the whole picture.”[92]

Wikistrat describes itself as “Wikipedia meets Facebook” and the world’s first crowdsourced consultancy leveraging a global network of over 2,000 subject-matter experts.[93] Following interviews with current and former employees and the review of documents, The Daily Beast concluded that, “the vast majority of Wikistrat’s clients were foreign governments; that Wikistrat is, for all intents and purposes, an Israeli firm; and that the company’s work was not just limited to analysis. It also engaged in intelligence collection.”[94] Among the notable members of Wikstrat’s analytic community features various counter-terrorism experts, including Richard Weitz, notorious Islamophobe Daniel Pipes, Parag Khanna, Kenneth R. Timmerman, Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, Shaukat Qadir, James Joyner, James C. Bennett, Leon Hadar, Michael Rubin, Mark Galeotti and Anne-Marie Slaughter.

The firm has been cited by CNN, Reuters, Russia Today, Fox News and NPR as a consultancy of reference for geopolitical issues. In 2010, Wikistrat ran a simulation on the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, the results of which were referenced on CNN, Time and World Politics Review after Kim died in late 2011. In January 2014, Wikistrat analysts predicted the rise of a separatist movement in Crimea seeking Russian annexation. This process unfolded in March 2014, quite similarly to how Wikistrat had projected.[95]

The firm’s advisory council lists four-star general and former CIA and NSA director Michael Hayden, former four-star general and National Security Advisor James L. Jones, former deputy director of the National Security Council Elliott Abrams, and former CIA operative and former acting director of the Defense Intelligence Agency David Shedd who succeeded Michael Flynn, among others.[96] In 2005, Hayden was confirmed as the first Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence and awarded his fourth star-making him “the highest-ranking military intelligence officer in the armed forces.”[97] In 2006, Hayden was nominated Director of the CIA. During his tenure as director of the NSA from 1999 to 2005, Hayden oversaw the controversial NSA surveillance of technological communications between persons in the United States and alleged foreign terrorist groups, which resulted in the NSA warrantless surveillance controversy. Hayden also championed the Trailblazer Project, an NSA program intended to develop a capability to analyze data carried on communications networks like the Internet. It was intended to track entities using communication methods such as cell phones and e-mail. In 2013, Hayden stressed the indisputable legality of “what the NSA is doing” and called Edward Snowden a “troubled young man” and “morally arrogant to a tremendous degree.”[98]

During his military career, James L. Jones served as Commander, United States European Command (COMUSEUCOM) and Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) from 2003 to 2006 and as the 32nd Commandant of the Marine Corps from July 1999 to January 2003. After retiring, he served as chairman of the Atlantic Council from June 2007 to January 2009, when he assumed the post of National Security Advisor which he held until November 2010. Abrams was convicted of withholding information from Congress about the Iran–Contra affair while serving under Reagan, but was pardoned by President George H. W. Bush. He is currently a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Through Senator Moynihan, Abrams was introduced to Rachel Decter, daughter of Midge Decter, stepdaughter of Norman Podhoretz.

Zamel also apparently wanted Michael Flynn to be a member of the firm’s advisory board. Zamel spoke with him about it on multiple occasions around the time Flynn was forming the Flynn Intel Group. “Flynn took a real shining to Joel,” a source said.[99] Zamel had apparently been introduced to Flynn by Bijan Kian, Flynn Intel Group’s former vice chairman of its board of directors. A former governor at the Export-Import Bank, Kian was chairman of a Persian cultural nonprofit group, the Nowruz Commission. He built a relationship with former CIA Director James Woolsey and, in 2013, used it to get Flynn to support his computer chip company’s bid for a contract. Kian was a partner of the Flynn Intel Group and while at the same time being a member of the incoming Trump administration’s transition team, had a role in attempts to extradite Fethullah Gülen.[100]

Nader and Zamel’s ties to Russian have been a subject of interest to the special counsel’s investigators. In 2012, Nader helped broker a controversial $4.2 billion deal for the government of Iraq to buy Russian weapons. In that same year, he attended the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, an invitation-only conference organized by senior officials close to Putin that Russia presents as its alternative to the World Economic Forum held annually in Davos, Switzerland.[101] Nader visited Moscow at least twice during the presidential campaign as a confidential emissary from Crown Prince Mohammed of Abu Dhabi. He even had his picture taken with Putin. Companies connected to Zamel also have ties to Russia. One of his firms had previously worked for Oleg Deripaska and Dmitry Rybolovlev, who hired the firm for online campaigns against their business rivals.[102] Rybolovlev, a billionaire fertilizer magnate, bought a beachfront mansion in Florida from Trump in 2008 for $95 million, more than twice what Trump had paid for the property just four years before.[103]

Zamel extolled his company’s ability to give an edge to a political campaign. By that time, the firm had already drawn up a multimillion-dollar proposal for a social media manipulation effort to help elect Trump. The firm, whose motto is “shape reality,” proposed using thousands of fake social media accounts to promote Trump’s candidacy on platforms like Facebook. This was despite the fact that the company had received legal advice that it would be illegal if any non-Americans were involved in the effort. After the inauguration, both Zamel and Nader visited the White House, meeting with Kushner and Bannon. In December 2016, Nader paid to $2 million to WhiteKnight, based in the Philippines, an internet company linked to Zamel, to purchase a presentation demonstrating the impact of social media campaigns on Trump’s electoral victory.[104]

Seychelles Meeting

On January 11, 2017, nine days before Trump’s inauguration, George Nader brokered another secret meeting, this time in the Seychelles, between Erik Prince and a Russian close to Putin, and also attended by Dahlan, who is also fluent in Russian and is seen as a conduit from the UAE to the Kremlin, and Hamad al Mazroie, who acts as MBZ’s right hand man and is the de facto head of the UAE intelligence service.[105] The Washington Post also reported that Prince told top Emiratis that he “was authorized to act as an unofficial surrogate for the president-elect.”[106] As reported in the Washington Post, Robert Mueller has gathered evidence that the meeting was part of “an effort to establish a back channel between the incoming administration and the Kremlin.”[107]

During the same period in January, Alexander Mashkevich, the Israeli-Kazakh billionaire and member of the Eurasian “Trio” linked to Bayrock, also arrived in the Seychelles to meet with MBZ, who was “holding court” at his mansion on the island. Also present was Sheikh Abdulrahman Khalid Bin Mahfouz, the son of Iran-Contra veteran and al-Qaeda financier, Khalid bin Mahfouz, a business partner of Bush family-friend James Bath, and who once owned a 20% stake in BCCI.[108]

It was eventually revealed that Prince was there to meet with Kirill Dmitriev, the CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), a ten-billion-dollar wealth fund created by the Russian government, which has been under sanctions since 2015.[109] Ukrainian-born Dmitriev is a Harvard MBA who worked at Goldman Sachs and CFR-linked McKinsey & Company, before returning to Russia in 2000. Putin presented Dmitriev with the Order of Alexander Nevsky for his valuable contribution to international investment projects and the socio-economic development of Russia. Dmitriev became a frequent visitor to Abu Dhabi, and Emirati officials came to see him as a key conduit to the Russian government. In a 2015 email, the Emirati ambassador to Moscow at the time described Dmitriev as a “messenger” to deliver information directly to Putin.[110]

RDIF has come under scrutiny from members of Congress because of its interactions with Anthony Scaramucci, who was briefly chosen to be Trump’s communications director. In February, Sen. Elizabeth Warren flagged Scaramucci for apparently serving as a “Trump’s translator” at the World Economic Forum in Davos for potential sanctions violations in correspondence with Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin. Scaramucci is a cofounder of Sky Bridge Capital, an investment firm that manages some $12 billion. Bloomberg reported that Scaramucci met with Dmitriev in Davos to discuss possible joint investments between SkyBridge and RDIF. “The idea was, many months ago, to have more outreach with Russia,” Scaramucci told Bloomberg.[111]

Middle East Strategic Alliance 

By May 2017, when Trump met with Arab leaders in Saudi Arabia, Kushner and bin Salman had agreed on the outlines of what they called a Middle East strategic alliance. Although Netanyahu would like to make these new relationships more public, he knows not to jeopardize MBZ and bin Salman’s reputations in their home countries by exposing their betrayal through secret collaboration with Israel. Eventually, explains Adam Entous, Netanyahu hopes that MBZ and bin Salman will take steps to finally officially recognize Israel. However, as a senior Arab official said of this strategic alliance, “With or without a peace plan, it’s happening.” A senior Trump adviser said, “Iran is the reason why this is all happening.”[112]

Israel would, for the time being, remain a “silent partner.” The US committed to taking a harder stance on Iran. And the Gulf states promised to help get the Palestinians to go along with the new program. Like MBZ, bin Salman, in conversations with US officials and Jewish-American groups, expressed disdain for the Palestinian leadership. He, too, seemed eager for that conflict to be finished, even if it meant the Palestinians were dissatisfied with the terms.[113] Bin Salman described to an American visitor the division of labor. “We’re going to get the deal done,” bin Salam said. “I’m going to deliver the Palestinians and [Trump] is going to deliver the Israelis.”[114]

Trump met MBZ on May 15, 2017, laying groundwork for his upcoming trip and a summit with Muslim leaders in Saudi Arabia that was vital to his plan against radical Islamic terrorism. On May 20 2017, Trump signed a deal with the Saudis worth $350 billion over 10 years and $110 billion that will take effect immediately, making it one of the largest arms sales deals in US history.[115] Jared Kushner had a personal hand in closing the deal. When the Saudis balked at the price tag of a “sophisticated radar system designed to shoot down ballistic missiles,” Kushner immediately picked up the phone and called Marillyn Hewson, the CEO of Lockheed Martin and asked her if she could give the Saudis a discount, according to the New York Times. Hewson apparently said she “would look into it.”[116]

In return, private equity firm Blackstone, co-founded by billionaire Stephen Schwarzman, head of Trump’s business council, reached an agreement with the Public Investment Fund (PIF), Saudi Arabia’s main sovereign wealth fund on a plan to create a $40 billion vehicle to invest in infrastructure projects, mainly in the United States.[117] Trump wants to spend $1 trillion on improving American infrastructure, and the Saudi money would certainly help achieve that goal. As Joel Moser pointed out in Forbes, “But don’t be fooled. Infrastructure investment is not the same as infrastructure development.”[118]

With large institutional investors and sovereign wealth funds recognizing the trillions of dollars in needed infrastructure investments in the U.S. and globally in coming decades, Blackstone has been preparing for a push infrastructure investment, including buildings, ports, wireless infrastructure, pipelines, railroads and airports. Firms like Global Infrastructure Partners, Macquarie, Brookfield Asset Management and BlackRock have already built substantial infrastructure portfolios.[119] To encourage such investment, McKinsey & Company established the Global Infrastructure Initiative. The world’s leaders in infrastructure and capital projects will convene in London for the fifth GII Summit on October 29-31, 2018, focused on megaproject delivery and digital transformation across the industry.

Saudi Arabia is planning to expand its sovereign wealth fund into the world’s largest as part of its attempts to diversify away from oil after prices slumped. The new fund “reflects our positive views around the ambitious infrastructure initiatives being undertaken in the United States as announced by President Trump,” the PIF’s managing director Yasir al-Rumayyan said.[120] The kingdom will transfer ownership of Saudi Arabian Oil Co. to the PIF, as well as the proceeds from the oil company’s initial public offering.

In late October 2017, Jared Kushner made an unannounced trip to Riyadh, where he met with bin Salman, who in June had just taken the place as next in line to the throne from his cousin, then-Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef. After the meeting, bin Salman told confidants that Kushner had discussed the names of Saudis disloyal to him. The Intercept was told by a source the crown prince shared details of discussion with Kushner with UAE’s MBZ, to whom he bragged that Kushner was “in his pocket.”[121] On November 4, the crown prince launched what an anti-corruption crackdown, arresting dozens of members of the Saudi royal family and imprisoning them in the Ritz-Carlton Riyadh. The list included Bin Salman’s cousin and close friend to Rupert Murdoch, 9/11 financier Alwaleed bin Talal.[122] Trump tweeted on November 6, 2017, “have great confidence in King Salman and the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, they know exactly what they are doing… Some of those they are harshly treating have been ‘milking’ their country for years!”[123]

Donald the Great

The numerous trends of alt-right activism, the Old Right, evangelicalism, Russian collusion and Dugin’s Eurasian agenda, converge in a Zionist agenda that places both Trump and Putin in a messianic role for the fulfillment of End Times prophecy, evidently orchestrated to advance Israel’s imperial ambitions. The simultaneous roles expected for Trump and Putin may be explained by Chabad Lubavitch’s interpretations of the prophecies of Gog and Magog. According to their ideology, the defeat of Gog and Magog will precipitate the Messianic Redemption. However, it is uncertain whether Gog and Magog are the names of nations or individuals, and whether this battle will be a physical or spiritual, and even whether it has already occurred or not. Some say that Elijah will arrive before the war of Gog and Magog, while others say that he will arrive three days prior to the revelation of Messiah. According to Chabad, tradition speaks of two redeemers involved in ushering in the Messianic Era, both called Moshiach. They are Moshiach ben David and Moshiach ben Yosef. According to certain sources, Moshiach ben Yosef will serve as Moshiach ben David’s viceroy, thus finally bringing to an end the schism between the northern Ten Tribes, which were ruled by Joseph’s descendants, and the Kingdom of Judea, which was ruled by the Davidic dynasty.[124]

In a 2016 book called God’s Chaos Candidate, Evangelical minister Lance Wallnau asked, “Could Trump be God’s Cyrus?” Numerous Evangelicals have expressed that Trump would follow the example of Cyrus, being that of a non-Jewish leader would assist the Jews in returning to their homeland and rebuild their famous Temple. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said it’s “at least a possibility,” in an appearance March 21, 2019, on the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN), that Trump is a biblical savior. “Could it be that President Trump right now has been sort of raised for such a time as this, just like Queen Esther, to help save the Jewish people from the Iranian menace?” host Chris Mitchell asked Pompeo. “As a Christian, I certainly believe that’s possible,” Pompeo answered. “I am confident that the Lord is at work here,” he added.[125]

Speaking of Trump’s promise to move the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, fanatical Christian Zionist pastor John Hagee said, “What President Trump is doing is one of the most courageous political things that’s been done in Washington in a long time.” Hagee claims that when he spoke with Trump in the White House about this a few weeks prior, he said “Other presidents have failed you, but I will not disappoint the Christian community in this issue. I will stand with Israel, and we will at some point in time, move the embassy.”[126] They also talked about the significance of moving the embassy in this “Jubilee Year.” Hagee told Trump that God measures everything in periods of 50 years, based on a principle outlined in Leviticus 25. Significantly, it has been 50 years since Israel’s victory in the Six-Day War in 1967, defeating the attacking armies of Israel’s three neighboring countries, Egypt, Jordan and Syria, that Israel captured East Jerusalem, held by Jordan, and united it with West Jerusalem, held by Israel.

Christian pro-Israel activist Mike Evans, who plastered Jerusalem with billboards praising the decision, promised to tell Trump, “You are Cyrus,” after his announcement that the United States would move its embassy to Jerusalem. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made the same connection in a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in March 2018, predicting the rise of a new Cyrus. A week prior, the Mikdash Educational Center, an Orthodox group, produced a “temple coin” that superimposes an image of Trump over one of Cyrus.[127]

Mikdash is an arm of the Temple Institute, founded by Rabbi Yisrael Ariel, who along with other Kach members, including Dugin’s associate Avigdor Eskin and other Kach members, like Meir Kahane’s brother Rabbi Nachman Kahane, are key members of the revived Sanhedrin. The Sanhendrin supports controversial Jewish settlement of the West Bank, following the brutal prescriptions of the Rebbe Schneerson. Kach and Kahane Chai were declared terrorist organizations in 1994 by the Israeli government. The banning of the two groups followed one of the most well-known incidents of Jewish extremism, the massacre of twenty-nine Muslims in Hebron by Dr. Baruch Goldstein, a Chabanik and prominent member of Kach on February 25, 1994.

Both Kach and Kahane Chai organize protests against the Israeli government and harass and threaten Palestinians in Hebron and the West Bank. Groups affiliated with them have threatened to attack Arabs, Palestinians, and Israeli government officials. In April 2002, the current leader of Kach, Baruch Marzel, was arrested by Israeli police in connection with a plot to leave a trailer laden with two barrels of gasoline and two gas balloons outside a Palestinian girls’ school in East Jerusalem. The West settlements of Tapuah and Kiryat Arba are strongholds of the Kahnist movement. According to the International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism, both organizations receive support from American and European sympathizers.[128]

Stephen Lendman reports, “Views like these aren’t exceptions. Though a minority, they proliferate throughout Israeli society…”[129] Israeli author and former chief of Israeli military intelligence Yehoshafat Harkabi touches on this in his 1988 book Israel’s Fateful Hour. Harkabi writes that while such extremist beliefs are not “widely dominant,” the reality is that “nationalistic religious extremists are by no means a lunatic fringe; many are respected men whose words are widely heeded.”[130] Brownfeld, who is editor of the American Council for Judaism’s periodical Issues and contributor to the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, reports that after Schneerson’s death, “[T]housands of his Israeli followers played an important role in the election victory of Binyamin Netanyahu. Among the religious settlers in the occupied territories, the Chabad Hassids constitute one of the most extreme groups. Baruch Goldstein, the mass murderer of Palestinians, was one of them.”[131]

Brownfeld writes that it is essential to understand these beliefs in order to understand the current situation in the West Bank, where many of the most militant West Bank settlers are motivated by religious ideologies in which every non-Jew is seen as “the earthly embodiment” of Satan, and according to the Halacha, the term ‘human beings’ refers solely to Jews.”[132] Brownfeld explains that leaders of the settler movement in the occupied West Bank follow the teachings of Rabbi Kook, “the revered father of the messianic tendency of Jewish fundamentalism,” which based on the Lurianic Kabbalah.[133] Brownfeld quotes Kook: “The difference between a Jewish soul and souls of non-Jews—all of them in all different levels—is greater and deeper than the difference between a human soul and the souls of cattle.” In Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, Shahak and Mezvinsky state, “One of the basic tenets of the Lurianic Cabbala is the absolute superiority of the Jewish soul and body over the non-Jewish soul and body. According to the Lurianic Cabbala, the world was created solely for the sake of Jews; the existence of non-Jews was subsidiary.”[134]

Also known as the Nascent Sanhedrin, established in 2004, it represents the sixth attempt in recent history, after Rabbi Jacob Berab in 1538, Rabbi Yisroel of Shklov in 1830, Rabbi Aharon Mendel haCohen in 1901, Rabbi Zvi Kovsker in 1940 and Rabbi Yehuda Leib Maimon in 1949. The Nascent Sanhedrin regards itself as a provisional body awaiting integration into the Israeli government as both a supreme court and an upper house of the Knesset, while the Israeli secular press regards it as an illegitimate fundamentalist organization of rabbis. The current Nasi of the Sanhedrin is Chabad-Lubavitcher Adin Steinsaltz, who has been hailed by Time magazine as a “once-in-a-millennium scholar.”[135]

This propensity for extremism bodes worrisome possibilities given the Sanhendrin’s dedication to rebuilding the Third Temple. Mainstream Orthodox Judaism bans Jews from visiting the Mount and believes the rebuilding of the Temple, destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD, can only occur after the arrival of the Messiah. The Nascent Sanhedrin does not share this view and are eager to re-establish a Jewish presence on the site, even if that risks igniting conflict. Its long-term aims are to build the third Jewish temple on the Temple Mount. The most immediate and obvious obstacle to realization of these goals is the fact that two historic Islamic structures which are thirteen centuries old, namely the Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, are built on top of the Temple Mount. Al Aqsa is the third holiest site in Sunni Islam. Muslims believe that Muhammad was transported from the Sacred Mosque in Mecca to al-Aqsa during the Night Journey, known as the Isra and Mi’raj.

The head of the Sanhedrin’s rabbinical court is Rabbi Yisrael Ariel. Ariel is the founder and director of the Temple Institute, a group which prepares the vessels and other requirements for the building of the third Jewish temple in Jerusalem. Ariel is also a former member of Kach and ran as the second candidate on the party’s list in the 1981 general election behind its assassinated former leader, Rabbi Meir Kahane, the slain founder of the Jewish Defense League (JDL).[136] Haaretz investigation revealed that the Temple Institute has received donations from Eli Ben-Dahan, Israeli Deputy Defense Minister and a key Netanyahu supporter in the US. American donations are provided through the P.E.F. Israel Endowment Funds Inc., established in 1922 by founders who included Sabbateans, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis and Rabbi Stephen Wise.[137]

Rabbi Hillel Weiss, spokesman for the Sanhedrin, contacted Breaking Israel News “to announce that the election of Trump, who has promised to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, coupled with Putin’s expressed desire for the Temple to be rebuilt, prompted the Jewish court to send a letter offering the two the opportunity to act as modern-day Cyrus figures: non-Jewish kings who recognize the importance of Israel and the Temple.”[138] Rabbi Weiss claimed that the American media “tried to create a man-made reality in which Trump could not win. In the end, it did not work. Hashem is moving us towards a greater Jerusalem, and anyone who goes against that, is destined to fail.” Rabbi Yosef Berger, who oversees the final resting place of King David on Mount Zion, told Breaking Israel News. “The gematria (numerology) of his name is Moshiach (Messiah). He is connected to the Messianic process which is happening right now. When he promised to move the American Embassy to Jerusalem, he attached himself to the power of Moshiach, which gave him the boost he needed. If you separate from Jerusalem, disaster will follow.” Rabbi Berger added, “As the spiritual descendant of the Biblical nation of Edom, America has a very important role to play in the Messiah. But in order to be suited for that role, America had to be humbled.”[139]

The Sanhedrin’s letter notes that Trump’s surprise victory was due to his support of Jerusalem, and reminds Trump of his campaign promise to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, effectively recognizing the city as the capital of Israel. The Jerusalem Embassy Act, passed in Congress in 1995, initiated the move of the embassy, but has been vetoed by every American president since. The Sanhedrin calls on Trump to withhold the veto after he takes office. “We are poised to rebuild the Temple. The political conditions today, in which the two most important national leaders in the world support the Jewish right to Jerusalem as their spiritual inheritance, is historically unprecedented,” Rabbi Weiss told Breaking Israel News.[140] The right-wing Likud government of Israeli was thrilled with Donald Trump’s electoral victory, and expressed hope that he would fulfill his promise to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. Bayit Yehudi chairman Naftali Bennett went further, declaring that “the era of a Palestinian state is over.”[141]

The one condition for Adelson’s substantial financial support was Trump’s commitment to move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Adelson told Trump, “Everything else you do, a thousand years from now, you’ll be remembered for this.”[142] After Trump’s victory, Bannon began drafting his “Day One” project, a list of executive actions that Trump intended to take as soon as he took office. At the top of the list was an executive order moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem. On May 14, 2018, as the ceremony in Jerusalem celebrating the establishment of the new US Embassy got under way, Netanyahu addressed the gathering by flattering Trump for his “courage” and willingness to keep his promises and said that he had “made history.” “It’s a great day for peace,” Netanyahu said.[143]

Donald Trump has named as his ambassador to Israel David Friedman, a bankruptcy lawyer who represented the president-elect over his failing hotels in Atlantic City, served Trump’s advisory team on the Middle East. Five former US Ambassadors to Israel signed a letter stating that Friedman was unqualified for the job.[144] Friedman, who is the president of American Friends of Beit El Yeshiva, a leading beneficiary of the Jared Kushner’s parent’s Charles Charles and Seryl Kushner Foundation.[145] Friedman, who is Trump’s senior adviser on Israel affairs, is considered to be very close to Trump, and has expressed interest in being the next U.S. ambassador to Israel.[146] Friedman wrote in the Jerusalem Post during the US election campaign that Israel would feel “no pressure” under a Trump administration. “America and Israel will enjoy unprecedented military and strategic cooperation, and there will be no daylight between the two countries,” he said.[147]

David Friedman has set out a number of hardline positions on Israeli-Palestinian relations, including opposition to the two-state solution and strong support for an undivided Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Friedman said he was looking forward to taking up his post in “the US embassy in Israel’s eternal capital, Jerusalem,” indicating Trump’s determination to overturn years of US policy and move the embassy from Tel Aviv.[148] Like Trump, Friedman is an admirer of Vladimir Putin, and has portrayed the Russian president as fighting Islamic State in Syria despite little of the Russian war effort being focused on Isis. “Vladimir Putin gets it,” Friedman wrote in November last year. “He may be a ‘thug,’ as he was recently described by Senator [Marco] Rubio, but he knows how to identify a national objective, execute a military plan, and ultimately prevail.”[149]

According to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Putin is popular amongst the Russian Jewish community, who see him as a force for stability. Under Putin, the Hasidic Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia (FJCR) became increasingly influential within the Jewish community of Russia, partly due to the influence and support of businessmen close to Putin, notably Lev Leviev and Roman Abramovich.[150] In 2016, Ronald S. Lauder, the president of the World Jewish Congress, also praised Putin for making Russia “a country where Jews are welcome.”[151]

During Putin’s third official trip to Jerusalem in 2012, an Israeli bystander called out in Russian, “Welcome, President Putin.” Putin approached the man, who explained the importance of the Temple Mount and the Jewish Temple. Chadrei Charedim, an Orthodox Hebrew news site, reported that Putin responded, “That’s exactly the reason I came here – to pray for the Temple to be built again.”[152] After this exchange, the Sanhedrin sent a letter to Putin calling on him to fulfill his prayer. Putin did not respond to the Sanhedrin’s request, but now Trump is perceived as a potential ally in the project, and the Sanhedrin believes it is time for Putin to take an active role in rebuilding the Temple.

Jason Greenblatt, a former Trump Organization lawyer and now a special representative for international negotiations at the White House, met “Putin’s Rabbi” Berel Lazar in the summer of 2016.[153] In 2014, Lazar was the only Jewish leader present at Putin’s announcement of the successful annexation of Crimea.[154] In a meeting in that same year with Lazar and chief rabbis from Israel, Europe and Russia, Putin said he “supports the struggle of Israel,” was noted as a “true friend” and ally of Benjamin Netanyahu, and pledged to combat anti-Semitism and “Holocaust denial” in Russia. During the meeting the Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel, Yitzhak Yosef, said of Putin’s rule in Russia: “according to the Jewish tradition, your leadership is decided by the kingdom of G-d, King of the world, and therefore we bless you: Blessed is the One who gave of His glory to flesh and blood.”[155]

Russia, reported the BBC, “has, for the time being, supplanted the United States as a key player in crisis management in Syria.”[156] On October 19, 2015, Putin and Netanyahu agreed to allow Gazprom to develop the Leviathan gas fields with major concessions from Israel.[157] “We discussed the continued coordination between our two militaries in the region, which already works quite well,” Netanyahu told reporters at a joint press conference in the Kremlin with Putin after they met again in June 2016. “We talked about the challenges to all civilized countries such as terrorism and radical Islam,” Netanyahu added. According to an English translation of Putin’s words by the Tass News Agency, the Russian leader stated: “We spoke about the necessity to pool efforts to counter international terrorism. Israel knows only too well what it means and it is fighting against terrorism. In this sense, we are unconditional allies.”[158]

[1] Christopher Stroop. “Between Trump and Putin: The Right-Wing International, a Crisis of Democracy, and the Future of the European Union.” The Public Eye (Spring 2017).

[2] Greg Miller, Greg Jaffe & Philip Rucker. “Doubting the intelligence, Trump pursues Putin and leaves a Russian threat unchecked.” Washington Post (December 14, 2017).

[3] John R. Schindler. “Mueller Finally Starts to Target Trump’s Israel Ties.” Observer (June 5, 2018).

[4] Chemi Shalev. “The Countless Israeli Connections to Mueller’s Probe of Trump and Russia.” Haaretz (May 26, 2018).

[5] Adam Entous. “Donald Trump’s New World Order.” New Yorker (June 18, 2018).

[6] Ibid.

[7] Paul Blumenthal. “These Super PAC Donors Were Able To Hide Their Identities Before The Election.” Huffington Post (December 9, 2016).

[8] Aiden Pink. “U.S. Jewish Leader Ronald Lauder Gave $1.1 Million to Covert Group Pushing anti-Muslim Campaign.” Haaretz (April 6, 2018).

[9] Ibid.

[10] Ibid.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Ibid.

[13] Ibid.

[14] Annie Karni. “Jared Kushner’s Mission Impossible.” Politico (February 11, 2017).

[15] Entous. “Donald Trump’s New World Order.”

[16] Steven Bertoni. “Exclusive Interview: How Jared Kushner Won Trump The White House.” Forbes (November 22, 2016).

[17] Lizzie Widdicombe. “Ivanka and Jared’s Power Play.” The New Yorker (August 22, 2016).

[18] Steven Bertoni. “Exclusive Interview: How Jared Kushner Won Trump The White House.” Forbes (December 20, 2016).

[19] David Ignatius. “Trump is now the CEO of a very public company. He should start acting like it.” Washington Post (March 28, 2017).

[20] Steven Bertoni. “Exclusive Interview.”

[21] Denis Slattery. “Trump blames son-in-law Jared Kushner for Mueller’s widening Russia probe, report says.” Toronto Star (November 1, 2017).

[22] Gabriel Sherman. “‘I Have Power’: Is Steve Bannon Running for President?” Vanity Fair (December 21, 2017).

[23] Ibid.

[24] Ibid.

[25] Ibid.

[26] Michael S. Schmidt, Matthew Rosenberg and Matt Apuzzomarch. “Kushner and Flynn Met With Russian Envoy in December, White House Says.” New York Times (March 2, 2017).

[27] Julia Ioffe. “Why Did Jeff Sessions Really Meet With Sergey Kislyak?” The Atlantic (June 13, 2017).

[28] Adam Entous, Ellen Nakashima & Greg Miller. “Sessions discussed Trump campaign-related matters with Russian ambassador, U.S. intelligence intercepts show.” Washington Post (July 21, 2017).

[29] Michael D. Shear. “Obama Warned Trump About Hiring Flynn, Officials Say.” New York Times (May 8, 2017).

[30] Dana Bash, Jim Sciutto, Gloria Borger & Daniella Diaz. “Sources: Kushner was the ‘very senior’ transition member mentioned in court filing.” CNN (December 2, 2017).

[31] Ibid.

[32] Jonathan Landay & Arshad Mohammed. “Trump adviser had five calls with Russian envoy on day of sanctions: sources.” Reuters (January 13, 2017).

[33] Jacob Pramuk & John W. Schoen. “Comey will testify he believes Trump wanted him to ‘drop’ Flynn investigation.” CNBC (June 7, 2017).

[34] Dan Merica. “Who was in Trump’s meeting with the Russians?” CNN (May 16, 2017).

[35] Julie Vitkovskaya and Amanda Erickson. “The strange Oval Office meeting between Trump, Lavrov and Kislyak.” Washington Post (May 10, 2017).

[36] Ibid.

[37] Matt Apuzzo, Maggie Habermas & Matthew Rosenbermay. “Trump Told Russians That Firing ‘Nut Job’ Comey Eased Pressure From Investigation.” New York Times (May 19, 2017).

[38] Luke Baker. “Israeli intel experts alarmed by Trump leak but play down any damage.” Reuters (May 17, 2017).

[39] David D. Kirkpatrick. “What to Know About Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, the Arab Ruler Swaying Trump.” New York Times (June 2, 2019).

[40] Fars News Agency. “Documents of Saudi Crown Prince’s Support for ISIS, Al-Qaeda.” Global Research (July 9, 2017).

[41] David D. Kirkpatrick. “What to Know About Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, the Arab Ruler Swaying Trump.” New York Times (June 2, 2019).

[42] S.A. Miller. “Trump welcomes Abu Dhabi’s crown prince to the White House.” Washington Times (May 15, 2017).

[43] Shane Harris, Carol D. Leonnig, Greg Jaffe & Josh Dawsey. “Kushner’s overseas contacts raise concerns as foreign officials seek leverage.” Washington Post (February 27, 2018).

[44] Carol E. Lee, Julia Ainsley and Robert Windrem. “Mueller team asking if Kushner foreign business ties influenced Trump policy.” NBC News (March 2, 2018).

[45] Ibid.

[46] Harris, Leonnig, Jaffe & Dawsey. “Kushner’s overseas contacts raise concerns as foreign officials seek leverage.”

[47] Chemi Shalev. “The Countless Israeli Connections to Mueller’s Probe of Trump and Russia.” Haaretz (May 26, 2018).

[48] Daniel Pipes. “Introduction to ‘Nothing Abides’” Middle East Forum (May 2015).

[49] Josh Gerstein. “Mueller witness was convicted on child porn charge.” Politico (March 16, 2018).

[50] Mark Mazzetti, Ronen Bergman and David D. Kirkpatrick. “Trump Jr. and Other Aides Met With Gulf Emissary Offering Help to Win Election.” New York Times (May 19, 2018).

[51] Betsy Woodruff. “Thiel-Backed PAC May Have Made Illegal Payments to Bannon Company.” The Daily Beast (December 9, 2016).

[52] Nico Hines. “GOP Lawmaker Got Direction From Moscow, Took It Back to D.C.” The Daily Beast (July 19, 2017).

[53] Jeremy Scahill. “Notorious Mercenary Erik Prince Is Advising Trump From the Shadows.” The Intercept (January 17, 2017).

[54] Ibid.

[55] Ibid.

[56] Ibid.

[57] Ibid.

[58] Adam Entous, Greg Miller, Kevin Sieff & Karen DeYoung. “Blackwater founder held secret Seychelles meeting to establish Trump-Putin back channel.” Washington Post (April 3, 2017).

[59] Mark Mazzetti, David D. Kirkpatrick & Adam Goldman. “Adviser to Emirates With Ties to Trump Aides Is Cooperating With Special Counsel.” New York Times (March 6, 2018).

[60] Adam Entous. “Donald Trump’s New World Order.” New Yorker (June 18, 2018).

[61] “UAE and Israel are like ‘brothers’ says senior general.” Middle East Monitor (November 17, 2017).

[62] Entous. “Donald Trump’s New World Order.”

[63] Ryan Grim & Akbar Shahid Ahmed. “His Town.” Highline: Huffington Post (September 2, 2015).

[64] Ryan Grim. “Diplomatic Underground: The Sordid Double Life of Washington’s Most Powerful Ambassador.” The Intercept (August 30, 2017).

[65] Adam Entous. “Donald Trump’s New World Order.”

[66] Ibid.

[67] Annie Karni. “Jared Kushner’s Mission Impossible.” Politico (February 11, 2017).

[68] David D. Kirkpatrick. “Who Is Behind Trump’s Links to Arab Princes? A Billionaire Friend.” The New York Times (June 13, 2018), p. A1.

[69] Ibid.

[70] Barak Ravid. “Exclusive: Netanyahu Secretly Met With UAE Foreign Minister in 2012 in New York.” Haaretz (July 25, 2017).

[71] Adiv Sterman & Aaron Kalman. “Arab media reports pin Mossad chief in UAE.” The Times of Israel (July 22, 2013).

[72] “Ambassador from United Arab Emirates to the U.S.: Who Is Yousef Al Otaiba?” AllGov (July 18, 2017).

[73] Gilli Cohen. “Israeli Air Force Holds Joint Exercise With United Arab Emirates, U.S. and Italy.” Haaretz (March 29, 2017).

[74] “Israel, UAE engaged in secret arms deals: Report.” Press TV (October 8, 2017).

[75] “Iran Research.” Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Retrieved 29 January 2013 from http://www.defenddemocracy.org/issues/iran/

[76] “Sheldon Adelson.” Forbes (February 11, 2018).

[77] Adam Entous. “Donald Trump’s New World Order.” New Yorker (June 18, 2018).

[78] Peter Stone. “Sheldon Adelson to give $25m boost to Trump Super Pac.” The Guardian (September 23, 2016).

[79] Caitlin Yilek. “GOP mega-donor Sheldon Adelson ‘furious’ over Rex Tillerson comments: Report.” The Washington Examiner (May 23, 2017).

[80] Entous. “Donald Trump’s New World Order.”

[81] Robert Cusack. “Everything you need to know about ‘those’ UAE emails.” The New Arab (June 3, 2017).

[82] Inigo Gilmore & Philip Jacobson. “Five killed as Israeli tanks go deep into Gaza.” The Telegraph (December 16, 2001).

[83] “A rival to the Palestinian president is sentenced in absentia.” The Economist (December 15, 2016).

[84] Ryan Parry & Josh Boswell. “EXCLUSIVE: Top Arab spy and prince’s conduit to the Kremlin were at the Seychelles meeting between Trump donor Erik Prince and Russian oligarch which Mueller is probing.” Daily Mail (March 12, 2018).

[85] Mark Mazzetti & Emily B. Hager. “Secret Desert Force Set Up by Blackwater’s Founder.” New York Times (May 14, 2011).

[86] Cited in Allison Kaplan Sommer. “Who Is Joel Zamel, the Australian-Israeli Linked to Mueller’s Trump Probe?” Haaretz (May 21, 2018).

[87] Byron Tau & Rebecca Ballhaus. “Mueller Probe Expands to Israeli Entrepreneur With U.A.E. Ties.” Wall Street Journal (May 19, 2018).

[88] Mark Mazzetti. “Rick Gates Sought Online Manipulation Plans From Israeli Intelligence Firm for Trump Campaign.” New York Times (October 8, 2016).

[89] Anshel Pfeffer. “Netanyahu and Orban: An Illiberal Bromance Spanning From D.C. to Jerusalem.” Haaretz (July 18, 2018).

[90] Ibid.

[91] Ken Klippenstein. “Inside the Mysterious Intelligence Firm Now in Mueller’s Sights.” The Daily Beast (June 4, 2018).

[92] Ibid.

[93] Byron Tau, Rebecca Ballhaus & Aruna Viswanatha. “Mueller Probe Into U.A.E. Influence Broadens.” Wall Street Journal (April 3, 2018-04).

[94] Ken Klippenstein. “Inside the Mysterious Intelligence Firm Now in Mueller’s Sights.” The Daily Beast (June 4, 2018).

[95] Michael B. Kelley. “AFTER CRIMEA: Top Intelligence Analysts Forecast The 5 Things That Putin Might Do Next.” Business Insider (March 21, 2014).

[96] Klippenstein. “Inside the Mysterious Intelligence Firm Now in Mueller’s Sights.”

[97] “Biographies : GENERAL MICHAEL V. HAYDEN.” United States Air Force. Retrieved from https://archive.is/20120722210758/http://www.af.mil/information/bios/bio.asp?bioID=5746

[98] Andrea Peterson. “Former NSA chief: ‘Morally arrogant’ Snowden will probably become an alcoholic.” The Washington Post (September 17, 2013).

[99] Klippenstein. “Inside the Mysterious Intelligence Firm Now in Mueller’s Sights.”

[100] David Kocieniewski & Lauren Etter. “What Michael Flynn Could Tell the Russia Investigators.” Bloomberg (March 19, 2018).

[101] Mark Mazzetti, David D. Kirkpatrick, Ben Protess & Sharon LaFraniere. “Witness in Mueller Inquiry Who Advises U.A.E. Ruler Also Has Ties to Russia.” New York Times (April 4, 2018).

[102] Mark Mazzetti, Ronen Bergman and David D. Kirkpatrick. “Trump Jr. and Other Aides Met With Gulf Emissary Offering Help to Win Election.” New York Times (May 19, 2018).

[103] Chas Danner. “Beyond Russia: Understanding the New Trump Campaign Collusion Story.” New York (May 20, 2018).

[104] Mazzetti, Bergman & Kirkpatrick. “Trump Jr. and Other Aides Met With Gulf Emissary Offering Help to Win Election.”

[105] Ryan Parry & Josh Boswell. “EXCLUSIVE: Top Arab spy and prince’s conduit to the Kremlin were at the Seychelles meeting between Trump donor Erik Prince and Russian oligarch which Mueller is probing.” Daily Mail (March 12, 2018).

[106] Adam Entous, Greg Miller, Kevin Sieff & Karen DeYoung. “Blackwater founder held secret Seychelles meeting to establish Trump-Putin back channel.” Washington Post (April 3, 2017).

[107] Sari Horwitz & Devlin Barrett. “Mueller gathers evidence that 2017 Seychelles meeting was effort to establish back channel to Kremlin.” Washington Post (March 7, 2018).

[108] Jonathan Landay & Arshad Mohammed. “Trump adviser had five calls with Russian envoy on day of sanctions: sources.” Reuters (January 13, 2017).

[109] Erin Banco. “Trump Envoy Erik Prince Met with CEO of Russian Direct Investment Fund in Seychelles.” The Intercept (November 28, 2017).

[110] Mark Mazzetti, David D. Kirkpatrick & Adam Goldman. “Adviser to Emirates With Ties to Trump Aides Is Cooperating With Special Counsel.” New York Times (March 6, 2018).

[111] Ilya Arkhipov & Patrick Donahue. “Trump Aide Talks Investment With Sanctioned Kremlin Fund.” Bloomberg (January 17, 2017).

[112] Adam Entous. “Donald Trump’s New World Order.” New Yorker (June 18, 2018).

[113] Ibid.

[114] Ibid.

[115] Javier E. David. “US-Saudi Arabia seal weapons deal worth nearly $110 billion immediately, $350 billion over 10 years.” CNBC (May 20, 2017).

[116] Alex Ward. “What America’s new arms deal with Saudi Arabia says about the Trump administration.” Vox (May 20, 2017).

[117] Ibid.

[118] Joel Moser. “With Blackstone’s New Fund, Don’t Confuse Infrastructure Investment with Infrastructure Development.” Forbes (May 22, 2017).

[119] Antoine Gara. “Blackstone Unveils $40 Billion Infrastructure Mega Fund With Saudi Arabia As President Trump Visits.” Forbes (May 20, 2017).

[120] “Blackstone, Saudi’s PIF plan $40 billion infrastructure investment fund.” Reuters (May 20, 2017).

[121] Alex Emmons, Ryan Grimm & Clayon Swisher. “Saudi Crown Prince Boasted that Jared Kushner Was ‘In His Pocket.” The Intercept (March 21, 2018).

[122] “Saudi Arabia princes detained, ministers dismissed.” Al Jazeera (November 5, 2017).

[123] Alex Emmons, Ryan Grimm & Clayon Swisher. “Saudi Crown Prince Boasted that Jared Kushner Was ‘In His Pocket.” The Intercept (March 21, 2018).

[124] Naftali Silberberg. “My Spiritual Photo Album.” Chabad.org (accessed February 14, 2018). Retrieved from https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/1264291/jewish/My-Spiritual-Photo-Album.htm

[125] Rex Santus. “Mike Pompeo thinks it’s ‘possible’ that Trump is a biblical savior.” Vice News (March 22, 2019).

[126] Mark Martin. “‘Biblical Timing of Absolute Precision’: John Hagee Praises Trump’s Jerusalem Decision.” CBN News (October 12, 2017).

[127] Samuel Godlman. “With the Embassy Move to Jerusalem, a Biblical Trump?” New York Times (March 8, 2018).

[128] Jessica Stern. Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill (HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 2003).

[129] Stephen Lendman. “Religious Fundamentalism in Israel.” SteveLendmanBlog (August 12, 2009).

[130] Alison Weir. “Why is the US Honoring a Racist Rabbi?” CounterPunch (April 7, 2014).

[131] Ibid.

[132] Ibid.

[133] Ibid.

[134] Ibid.

[135] Richard N. Ostling. “Giving The Talmud to the Jews.” Time (18 January 1988).

[136] Jeremy Sharon. “Far-right rabbinical group pens letter calling Jewish terror suspects ‘praiseworthy’.” Jerusalem Post (August 25, 2015).

[137] Uri Blau. “Netanyahu Allies Donated to Groups Pushing for Third Temple.” Haaretz (December 9, 2015).

[138] Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz. “BIN EXCLUSIVE: Sanhedrin Asks Putin and Trump to Build Third Temple in Jerusalem.” Breaking News Israel (November 10, 2016).

[139] Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz. “Trump Upset Victory Divinely Sent to Begin Messianic Process: Rabbis.” Breaking News Israel (November 9, 2016).

[140] Ibid.

[141] Gil Hoffman. “Israeli Right hails Trump: ‘The era of a Palestinian state is over.’” Jerusalem Post (November 9, 2016).

[142] Adam Entous. “Donald Trump’s New World Order.”

[143] Ibid.

[144] Ibid.

[145] Judy Maltz. “Kushner Foundation Bankrolls Radical Jewish West Bank Settlers.” Forward (December 5, 2016).

[146] Ibid.

[147] David Friedman. “First 100 Days.” Jerusalem Post (October 20, 2016).

[148] Ibid.

[149] Peter Beaumont. “Donald Trump’s Israel ambassador is hardline pro-settler lawyer.” The Guardian (December 16, 2016).

[150] Yossi Mehlman “No love lost.” Haaretz, (December, 11 2005); Phyllis Berman Lea Goldman. “Cracked De Beers.” Forbes (15 September 2003).

[151] “Ronald S. Lauder: Russia’s fight against anti-Semitism isn’t just good for Jews – it’s good for Russia as well.” World Jewish Congress (November 1, 2016).

[152] Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz. “BIN EXCLUSIVE: Sanhedrin Asks Putin and Trump to Build Third Temple in Jerusalem.” Breaking News Israel (November 10, 2016).

[153] Scott Shane & Andrew Kramer. “Trump Team’s Links to Russia Crisscross in Washington.” New York Times (March 3, 2017).

[154] Ben Schreckinger. “The Happy-Go-Lucky Jewish Group That Connects Trump and Putin.” Politico (April 09, 2017).

[155] Chaim Lev & Ari Yashar. “Putin: ‘I support the struggle of Israel’.” Arutz Sheva (July 10, 2014).

[156] Jonathan Marcus. “Putin and Netanyahu: A complex diplomatic dance.” BBC (March 9, 2017).

[157] “Putin and Netanyahu to strike deal on Levianthan gas field.” The Australian (October 19, 2015.

[158] Tovah Lazaroff. “Putin to Netanyahu: Israel, Russia ‘unconditional allies’ in war against terror.” Jerusalem Post (June 7, 2016).

Volume Six

1. Culture Wars

2. Red Mafia

3. From Russia With Love

4. #MeToo

5. Conservative Media

6. Atl-Reich

7. Multipolar World Order

8. Katehon

9. Collusion

10. Russia House

11. Techno-Libertarianism

12. Military-Digital Complex

13. Make America White Again!

14. Fake News

15. Memetic Warfare

16. Big Data

17. Big Government

18. In Trump We Trust

19. Israel First