Risk and Extortion LIII: Betrayal

Wer hat uns verraten? Die Sozialdemokraten

On 23. June 2025, a small, relatively obscure, piece of news was shared by the Dutch public broadcast service: the N.O.S.: many prominent members of the Dutch Social Democratic Party (PvdA, which literally means Party of Labour) have cancelled their membership because the party supports a total arms embargo on Israel. The second line of that piece of “journalism” states that around 350 members have left the party. The third line says that about 1000 new members have joined the party. Further down it reports that the vast majority of the party, which is not just the PvdA but also the Green-Left As the parties have recently merged, has voted in support of an arms embargo.

A few questions emerged. (1) Why did the NOS chose the headline “prominent members left the party because its members overwhelmingly voted in favour of an arms embargo against Israel? It could also have said that membership of the party has grown since the vote to support an arms embargo. (2) Why did prominent members of said “left of centre” party disagree with the result of a democratic process within their party? Why did they feel so strongly about this? Are they on Jeffrey Epstein’s contact list or something similar that we do not yet know about perhaps? (3) Why does the NOS focus on prominence as representing the political? (4) Why is there such a gap between prominent members and general public opinion? Their party voted for something that the overwhelming majority of the Dutch are strongly in favour of.

I want to start with the last question. In countries that I know well, such as the Netherlands, England and Germany, there is a huge gap between public opinion regarding Israel and the opinions held by political parties and propagated by mainstream media. This is amazing and, I hasten to add, extremely encouraging. Against the widespread belief amongst public opinion managers working in news media, PR and entertainment, that Israel is justified in doing what it does best – whatever spin you one prefers to give to it – the vast majority of normal, ordinary people are not buying it. This is amazing because the Hasbara has been relentless. On this issue, it seems that people are rejecting the dominant ideology despite not being given anything substantial in terms of balanced, factual reporting.

I am rejoicing because this is proof that most people are not as bad as we are led to believe. Most people have a truth-instinct and they can smell a rat. This is a reason for joy as it means that those who are currently swayed to vote for parties that openly espouse fascist desires are not doing so because they are bad people. Their motives might be much better than we give them credit for.

In the Netherlands, the most avid supporter of Israeli war crimes is a politician called Geert Wilders, leader and sole member of the largest political party in parliament – the PVV (Party for “the” Freedom). Geert hates Muslims and loves Israel because it murders Muslims. That is his sole political platform. Anything else that he promises – regarding housing, healthcare, pensions etc – is irrelevant as long as he can publicly vent his Islamophobia. It may of course be, that many of his supporters also dislike foreigners, but not because they are Muslism. In fact, they may actually get along very well with their Muslim neighbours, who have been in the Netherlands for decades. Connecting his hatred for Muslims to a perhaps more general aversion to immigration might have given Geert Wilders the edge in the last elections, it now seems to collapse on his support for Israel. That is also because quite a few of his supporters might actually identify Israel as a foreign nation, just like any other foreign nation, nothing special. So when a few hundred Macabbi Tel Aviv supporters decided to provoke riots in Amsterdam, local people decided to fight back. Who do you think the average PVV voter would support? The foreign instigators of violence or the domestic defenders of the city?

Wilders made a huge mistake in opposing his cabinet’s decision to call for an evaluation of the preferential trade agreement between the EU and Israel. His own platform – hiding Islamophobia behind the façade of Xenophobia – spectacularly backfired. Why should the Netherlands support Israel? Before we even start to include the real antisemitism that is included in popular Xenophobia, we should at least acknowledge that fighting Wilders in the next general elections in the Netherlands, is likely to be more successful by adopting anti-Israeli politics.

The majority of the members of the PvdA/Groen Links understood this, not because they are necessarily all good people (the majority will undoubtedly be) but also because they understand politics. If the vast majority of the Dutch electorate are opposing the Genocide in Gaza, it makes perfect political sense to turn that into a cornerstone of your political platform. You do not win elections by pandering unpopular standpoints.

So, what to make of the strange, inexplicable attempts by mainstream media and many “prominent politicians” to keep pushing extreme pro-Zionist politics? The only … let me repeat the only …. logical explanation can be that they are being pressurized to do so. That is, popular opinions matter less to mainstream media and political elites than whatever this pressure consists of.

Here is my thesis: the state of Israel has infiltrated political and journalistic elites for decades, either through flattery, bribery, or extortion. As I wrote this, MintPress punlished a report about Raffi Berg, A BBC Middle East editor , who worked for the CIA and Mossad. Thirteen BBC employees have filed complaints against him for aggressively repressing critical reporting Israel. The BBC have of course completely failed their licence fee payers because they have chosen to act as extensions of Hasbara rather than heed to the calling of professional journalism.

 Trump, for example, can be easily bought with flattery because he is a vain narcissist and incredibly stupid. Wilders is easily persuaded because of his neurotic Islamophobia but he probably still needs some extra incentives. Bill Clinton might have been extorted because he loves having sex with young women (proven as fact) and perhaps even underage girls (alleged). Obviously, we will never know. But it is not far fetched, to think that because of the role of the USA in international trade and military, all these “leaders” are owned by Zionism. Zionism will also have reached out to senior news editors of mainstream media such as the BBC, the NOS, CNN and in Germany the ARD and ZDF. Either flattering them, threatening them or bribing them. And why not? If you spend so much money on Hasbara and still cannot get people to support your psychotic ideological approach to politics and still fail, you might as well spend it on institutions that will at least blacken out oppositional perspectives. By the way, the BBC suspended six of its reporters for simply liking pro-Palestine tweets.

By corrupting and eroding critical, independent journalism in Europe, North-America and Australia/New Zealand, Israel can simply feed Hasbara to the news desks. This is enough to enable the politicians in those nations to not oppose war crimes and crimes against humanity. Now the plan has failed. The vast majority of people, regardless of political allegiance, are no longer convinced that mainstream news media are honourable, honest, reliable, trustworthy and independent. The reactions to the role of mainstream media during the Covid-Pandemic was already a writing on the wall. The democratic political system has been corrupted to such an extent that it has become a parody of itself and the mainstream media are its façade.

The so called prominent members of the PvdA/Groen Links who left the party are all absorbed by the corrupt elitism of the professional managerial class. One of them, Gerdi Verbeet, reacted to the democratic vote by party members to impose an arms embargo by stating that “the would not get anymore funding.” From whom? Did she just admit that parties and politicians get additional funding if they support Israel? This kind of alignment between politics and bribery, extortion and flattery are exactly the reasons why so many people hate democracy. Therefore, we should celebrate that these so called “icons” have left a social-democratic party. They are the scum of the earth, the grave diggers of democracy.  They should, however, also be investigated for their contacts with foreign operatives. Their bank accounts should be checked for irregular transactions. Their “functions” should be cross-checked with foreign interests, investments and above all arms manufacturers linked to Israel. None of this will happen of course, but it is worth bearing in mind when reading about them in the news.

I might be wrong. They might actually all support Israel without benefiting from it. They might actually believe that supporting Israel is an election-winning strategy. Then, however, they are simply incredibly stupid and we should still celebrate their membership cancellations. Either way, these people do not need to be heard. They certainly do not deserve the adjective “prominent”.

By framing the news item around prominence, mainstream media confirm that they are indeed the mouthpiece of the ruling class and a threat to democracy. Who in their right mind ignores the ICJ’s warning in January 2024 that Israel might be committing a genocide, and when subsequently confronted with irrefutable evidence of this genocide, continue to pretend that this is merely a controversial opinion in line with “wir haben es nicht gewußt”? The staggering amount of shamelessness, hypocrisy and cowardice that defines Hasbara also defines mainstream Western media.

What these prominent genocide-apologists and mainstream media have in common is a desire for kakistocracy. They know perhaps that their prominence is undeserved and has nothing to do with talent. It only has to do with arbitrary selection. They are really mediocre vessels that are easily corrupted because they have no sense of dignity, honour, courage and loyalty. They are indeed perfect for a world ruled by kakistocracy in the same way that flies are perfect for a world covered in feaces.