Philip Giraldi – The Unz Review Dec 26, 2025

As has been reported, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will yet again be in Washington on Monday December 29^th. It is a visit that initial media reports claimed had been requested by Trump, which would underline the value of the relationship to the US president. Nevertheless, there have also been some suggestions that Netanyahu, working through his Embassy in Washington and employing the considerable resources of the domestic US Israel Lobby, might have been the real force behind the fifth such meeting in Washington this year plus an additional meeting in on October 13^th in Israel to celebrate the non-ceasefire with Gaza which was being promoted as some kind of victory.

To look at it all another way, both Trump and Netanyahu have somewhat clashing viewpoints that they will likely be promoting when the two men finally sit down and talk. Trump, who set up a ceasefire that is 90% fake, giving Israel a free hand which it has used to kill more Gazans while also taking de facto control of most of historic Gaza through expansion of its “yellow line” security zone, will seek to sustain the fraud by convincing Israel to reign in its aggression just enough to allow the so-called “Trump Peace Plan” to proceed to its next phase. That will give Trump a new property to name after himself in reconstructed Gaza and will also strengthen his claim on the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize which he clearly so strongly desires and it will also mute criticism of his foreign policy that is increasingly coming primarily from within the younger ranks of MAGA itself.

Netanyahu, who has made clear that there will be no Palestinian entity that has actual sovereignty will be willing to play the game up to a point, but he will quite possibly be demanding his own quid pro quo, which will be a joint attack on Iran. Netanyahu’s argument will likely center on the Iranian acquisition as well as independent development of a superior missile inventory which has shifted the balance of forces in the Middle East. Netanyahu is not likely to raise the claimed “threat” posed by Iran’s alleged secret nuclear weapons development as Trump continues to insist that the US attack on Iran in June “obliterated” the nuclear program.

And Netanyahu might also be selling a radical new idea that he is promoting which will involve the posting of armed paramilitaries trained and commanded by Israel in various places in the world where there are large Jewish communities. In a recent interview, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expanded on his proposal, arguing in some detail how he would deploy armed Jewish security guards globally, modeled on Israel’s own armed civilian–settler security authorities. Referring to the recent attack on a Hanukkah gathering in Australia, Netanyahu argued that five to fifteen armed guards would have “ended it immediately,” adding: “That’s what we’ve seen time and again in Israel… the world has changed, recognize the change.” This protection force has been described in the Israeli media as a “Jewish People’s Guard,” a permanent global security structure, operating across borders, coordinated with Israel. Its presence would be a given in the United States and other friendly governments and, where feasible, actually paid in part by and integrated with local law enforcement. Per Netanyahu and his right-wing supporters, Jewish communities are now on the “front line,” needing rapid-response units operating under unified protocols to share intelligence to preemptively identify and disrupt “incitement processes before they turn violent.”

This vision of a “Jewish Defense League” approach is already developing In Australia, where the Community Security Group (CSG), a Jewish security organization with direct training links to Israel, is seeking authorization to carry weapons. A former member also told journalists that the group has functioned as a recruiting ground for Israeli intelligence. Despite this, the Australian government has already issued cash grants to the CSG in the wake of the Bondi attack while politicians are discussing the arming of the group. It constitutes a push to normalize armed, transnational, identity-based security forces that operate with full state backing, having intelligence ties with a foreign nation, and also foreign country direction and coordination. Scary huh?

Interestingly, the United States is part way there with its Department of Homeland Security discretionary grants, more than 90% of which already go to Jewish recipients to the tune of more than $300 million per year. The grants are made to enhance security at sites that have a Jewish connection and as the money is fungible exactly how it is used is up to the recipient. Getting on board to the Israeli transnational plan for an armed and dangerous global “Jewish People’s Guard” could fit quite nicely!

Would the US Congress and the White House go for a Jewish militia in the US directed, trained and armed by Israel? Based on the Congressional and White House love affair with Israel and Netanyahu the answer, unfortunately, might be “yes” with the increasingly Jewish dominated mainstream media cheering from the sidelines. The fundamental problem is that if Trump were truly willing or able to stand up to the Israelis to oppose such a scheme or anything like it, he would have done so already given Netanyahu’s daily bloody violations of the US backed ceasefire agreement and its promotion of wars throughout the Middle East. Trump has always surrendered to Netanyahu and the benefits on offer presented by the Israel Lobby and its donors like Miriam Adelson so it should be presumed that he will continue true to form this time around though he may wrap any agreement made privately on December 29^th in Christmas (or is it Hanukkah?) paper for the American public’s consumption. After all, a man who takes on the might of Venezuela and Nigeria because they pose some kind of imaginary threat will not balk at attacking Iran again or welcoming Israeli guards as long as Netanyahu and friends can contrive a plausible reason to do so.

All of which is not to say that in spite of the love fest with Israel Trump will not be looking over his shoulder as he bows and scrapes to the Jewish leader due to what constitutes dissension in the MAGA ranks. Interestingly, a meeting of the Turning Point USA AmericaFest Conference, the organization founded by the assassinated Charlie Kirk, concluded in Arizona just before Christmas. It included the loathsome Israel First monster Ben Shapiro address the crowd, during which he was reportedly booed numerous times even though he carefully didn’t even mention Israel. An audience question and answer session followed on to Shapiro’s remarks and one of the first questions was about Israel’s attack on the USS Liberty in 1967. He tried to defend Israel and rationalize the attack by claiming the heat of battle can result in friendly fire but the rumbling noise from the audience indicated that those present weren’t buying it. Later, Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon also spoke and made a point of attacking the one-sided relationship with Israel. The audience applauded. They also applauded and even cheered when Carlson and Bannon both slammed Shapiro personally.

Donald Trump is not a very intelligent man, his instincts to promote and glorify himself can only carry him so far, but he does understand when the tide is turning against him and could become increasingly personal. The fact that those attending a gathering as conservative as Turning Point are making the connection that America First doesn’t mean Israel First is a dramatic change of direction on the right. And the fact that Shapiro didn’t even try to mention Israel proves that even a zealot like him now knows that advocating for Israel has become a losing issue. Trump presumably has also begun to figure that out, so it will be interesting to see how it plays with Netanyahu. And it will also be interesting to learn what cards Netanyahu will have to play in return.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is https://councilforthenationalinterest.org address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org

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