By Jamal Kanj | MEMO | October 1, 2026

Since the start of the latest made-for-Israel war, Donald Trump and his surrogates have repeatedly promised Americans that it would be a few weeks and oil prices would soon crash below prewar levels. Instead, it was every promise that crashed. When those promises failed to materialize, the message shifted: the war is worth the price to stop Iran from becoming a nuclear power.

But what if Iran did become a nuclear power? How would that pose a greater threat to the U.S. than North Korea or Russia already do? Or is the real concern not a risk to America, but a challenge to the regional hegemony of a foreign nuclear power, Israel?

For more than thirty years, according to Israel’s fiction, Iran was on the verge of becoming a nuclear-armed state. That fictitious deadline has come and gone repeatedly, yet Benjamin Netanyahu has been recycling  the same lie since 1992. The Israeli lies and deceit persisted even though, unlike Israel, Iran’s nuclear program was subject to strict international monitoring.

Still, Trump, at Netanyahu’s urging, walked away from an agreement that imposed some of the most stringent and verifiable restrictions ever placed on a country’s nuclear program. Now Americans are being asked to pay in blood and billions of dollars for abandoning a diplomatic agreement that had kept Iran’s nuclear program under unprecedented international scrutiny and helped contain the very threat now being used to justify the war.

The hypocrisy is impossible to overlook. Iran has been subjected to relentless demands for transparency and inspections, while Israel’s own nuclear arsenal, built in part with materials stolen from the U.S., remains shielded from any international inspection.

Yet somehow Iran’s ambitious know-how is the existential nuclear threat, not Israel’s nuclear bombs.

American consumers have long been the victims of a disinformation campaign, and now they are being forced to pay the price for a war sold to them on false pretenses. The most recent misinformation claiming the Strait of Hormuz is open and oil is flowing. The president said it on Fox, and the outgoing White House press secretary told Fox & Friends that the U.S. is essentially controlling the strait and that it remains open. These claims leave only two possibilities: either the statements are outright lies, or oil companies are gouging the consumer.

The UK Maritime Trade Operations Centre reported that commercial traffic through the strait remains about 75 percent below pre-conflict levels. It also tallied dozens of projectile strikes on vessels in just the past two months.

Three quarters less traffic is not a sign of an open strait. Shipowners and insurers know this, so do traders and so the climbing numbers at the gas pump.

The market has already made its judgment, and every American who fills a tank can see it. It is past time for Washington to stop lying.

For the average consumer, the pump is where it felt. Regular gasoline was below $3 a gallon before the U.S. was dragged into another one of made-for-Israeli wars. Families are paying more to get to work, truckers are paying more to move goods, and those costs show up in the price of groceries.

Meanwhile, American oil companies are pumping at record levels. Exxon and Chevron are producing record volumes from oil fields on American soil, thousands of miles from the Strait of Hormuz. Their production costs have not changed. What has changed is Israel’s war surcharge consumers are being forced to pay.

Chevron reported the largest quarterly net profit in its history, $12.1 billion. Exxon made $14.5 billion in the same quarter, about $160 million a day. Refining has become more lucrative. Gross refining margins more than doubled, soaring from a typical $20 crack spread to as much as $60.

Meanwhile, Trump dangles a pie-in-the-sky deal with Venezuela as a distraction from consumers’ mounting anxiety, while his administration stands by as oil companies exploit overseas crises for record profits. These companies have no reason to lower prices when war has handed them a windfall. This is what a war of choice looks like on the ground: American consumers are forced to pay the price, while oil executives in Texas turn a crisis into a lucrative business opportunity.

American consumers deserve more than false promises. If the Strait is open, then oil prices should be coming down. If it is not, then stop treating consumers as an audience whose emotions must be managed rather than citizens entitled to hear the truth. Since the war started, every week, like millions of Americans, I fill my gas tank, and the Israeli war tax is higher than it was the week before.

No, Mr. President, that is not “worth the price” to pay for a war fabricated in Israel, a repeat of the made-for-Israel war in Iraq 23 years ago.

This is not a war to end Iran’s fictitious nuclear power. It is a war paid for by taxpayers’ money and American blood to ensure that Israel remains the only absolute nuclear power in the Middle East.

By Robert Inlakesh | Al Mayadeen | October 1, 2026

US President Donald Trump has officially announced a formal withdrawal of American troops from Iraqi territory, yet the economic, social and diplomatic hold on the nation remains. If US troops are going to be permanently booted out, it necessitates an Iraqi national resistance that is capable of operating as a guarantor.

On October 21, 2011, former US President Barack Obama announced that the United States had withdrawn its remaining occupying forces from Iraqi territory. Then, only two and a half years later, the US re-deployed its forces back into the country under the guise of fighting the Daesh insurgency.

Iraq, having experienced a regime change operation followed by a brutal occupation and nationbuilding project, was left incapable of defending itself from the ISIS takeover, let alone pushing back against the United States redeploying its forces. First, the Obama administration deployed forces that it said were there to protect its diplomatic staff, in addition to advisors to the Iraqi armed forces.

Later it would expand this presence, expanding its “Operation Inherent Resolve” into Syrian territory, providing it with supply routes and a platform from which to de facto occupy northeastern Syria. The US operation in Syria and Iraq helped them eventually achieve their longtime goal of regime change in Damascus by depriving the Syrians of their access to the nation’s oil resources and fertile agricultural lands.

In 2020, Donald Trump had agreed to remove his forces from Iraqi territory, re-iterating this pledge during a meeting with then Iraqi PM Mustafa al-Kadhimi. The following year, former President Joe Biden then declared the official end of his nation’s combat mission inside the country. Only now, in 2026, and after extensive attacks on US military facilities by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, has the pledge to withdraw American forces been followed through on.

When the US and Saudi Arabia recently blamed Iraqi forces for carrying out an attack on Riyadh’s East-West Pipeline, launching a large-scale bombing campaign across the country, some Iraqi officials instead issued statements against Iraq’s armed factions that had vehemently denied involvement in the incident.

The Trump administration is openly pushing for the disarmament of all military factions within the country, a project Washington has also sought to impose on all Resistance groups across the region. The United States has not allowed for there to be a reasonable integration of Resistance forces like Hezbollah in Lebanon with the Lebanese Armed Forces, nor allowed time for formal agreements to be struck in Iraq of a similar nature. Their goal is simply to disband these groups and then exert control over the armed forces of Lebanon and Iraq, leaving them all but defenseless and without access to strategic weapons capable of deterring violations of national sovereignty.

In the case of Baghdad, the nation’s government was a construct of US occupation; Washington still holds the economic cards that are capable of pressuring any leadership, no matter how well-intended its goals are, while it maintains an enormous soft-power pull through its extensive NGOisation project inside the country. Iraq was not allowed to rebuild its nation’s military following the toppling of Saddam Hussein’s rule in 2003, leaving it defenseless against ISIS terrorism a decade later.

On the ground, this is why there was a need for the Hashd al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation Forces) to emerge. It was the Hashd that was chiefly responsible for defeating the terrorist invasion and purging its militants from Iraqi cities. Many of these groups that fought under the banner of the Hashd then went on to develop considerable military power and an extensive arsenal.

As revealed during the Ramadan War earlier this year, the Israeli Mossad was able to develop bases inside Iraqi territory, while numerous militant groups still exist across the country’s territory, including various armed factions that are backed by the CIA and the Mossad.

If the Islamic Resistance in Iraq is disbanded and disarmed, then Iraq will be in the exact same defenseless position that allowed for ISIS to sweep through the nation so rapidly and seize so much territory, leaving behind a trail of blood in their wake. This poses a threat to not only Iraq, but other neighbouring countries, including Iran. It threatens Syria’s fragile status quo too.

An Iraq without the Islamic Resistance would be like a Lebanon without Hezbollah, completely left at the mercy of the United States and their Israeli allies. Washington and Tel Aviv have a project that aims to totally dismantle regional sovereignty; this is why they have dedicated trillions of dollars and countless resources to destroying the armed forces of both Iraq and Syria over a period of nearly 30 years now. They are not about to simply sit by and allow Iraq and Syria to rebuild capable militaries, allowing them to follow the will of their people and to defend their own national interests.

The United States still maintains its air defence systems inside Iraqi territory, can use the country’s airspace at will and, as we saw only months ago, will launch airstrikes across the nation at the drop of a hat.

In order to deter a return of American occupation forces, under the guise of fighting whatever future threat they choose to use, there must be an Iraqi military force that is capable of acting in defense of the country, both on the ground and through the use of its long-range munitions if need be. A nation without a real military force cannot enjoy sovereignty. And a nation that is not able to go against the will of the United States, will serve as its proxy and will suffer the blowback that is inherent in complicity.

The US withdrawal from Iraq did not happen without a long history of resistance against its forces and public opinion that also opposes American interference. Protecting the achievement of ridding the country of the majority of US forces takes real military deterrence. Otherwise, the Israelis and the US will simply use the country’s territory for whatever projects they wish.

By Buğra Sarı | MEMO | October 1, 2026

Israel’s pursuit of security increasingly rests on a destabilizing proposition: that its neighbours become less threatening when their capacity to exercise sovereignty is diminished. Since the Hamas-led attacks of October 7, 2023, this approach has become particularly visible across several distinct arenas. Military operations, territorial incursions and restrictions on political and economic autonomy suggest a conception of security dependent on keeping others vulnerable. The consequences extend beyond individual confrontations. When states cannot control their territory, rebuild institutions or protect their populations, the regional conditions necessary for durable security begin to erode.

The argument is not that Israel created every conflict in the Middle East. Authoritarian rule, sectarian violence, armed groups and competing regional interventions have all contributed to the region’s instability.

The question is whether the means Israel uses to pursue its own security deepen that instability. Repeatedly weakening neighbouring states and political communities may bring short-term military gains, but it can also erode their ability to contain violence and maintain order, making the region more dangerous—including for Israel itself.

This pattern can be understood as the denial of sovereignty. Sovereignty involves more than diplomatic recognition: it requires institutions capable of governing, providing services and exercising legitimate authority over the use of force. When these capacities are persistently degraded, formal independence becomes increasingly hollow.

The cases differ in their circumstances and severity, but together they reveal a troubling hierarchy: Israeli freedom of military action repeatedly takes precedence over other societies’ ability to govern and secure themselves.

Syria offers a particularly revealing example. Following the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in December 2024, Israel launched extensive attacks against Syrian military infrastructure and moved into the separation zone established under the 1974 disengagement agreement. Israel justified the destruction of military assets as necessary to prevent advanced weapons from falling into extremist hands. Yet the targets included airfields, air-defence systems and naval facilities—capabilities relevant to the functioning of a state, whatever government eventually controls them.

The longer-term problem is that preventing a hypothetical future threat can obstruct the reconstruction of an already devastated country. Syria needs accountable security institutions capable of controlling territory, containing armed factions and protecting communities. Destroying military capabilities without a credible framework for rebuilding legitimate state authority risks leaving those functions unfulfilled. In July 2025, Israeli strikes on Damascus, including the defence ministry, further demonstrated Israel’s willingness to impose military limits on the new authorities.

Syria’s transitional authorities must themselves answer for abuses and protect minorities; state consolidation cannot justify repression. Nevertheless, externally imposed military vulnerability is no substitute for accountable governance.

A government expected to prevent threats from emerging within its territory must have the capacity to exercise authority there. Undermining that capacity can preserve the fragmentation through which armed groups survive.

Lebanon exposes a related contradiction. Hezbollah’s independent military power has long constrained the Lebanese state’s authority and its ability to determine questions of war and peace. Reducing that parallel authority could, under appropriate political arrangements, strengthen state sovereignty. But Israeli military action does not automatically transfer power from Hezbollah to the Lebanese government. Bombardment, displacement and violations of Lebanese territory can weaken the institutions expected to assume responsibility for national security.

The distinction is crucial: weakening an armed organization and strengthening a state are separate outcomes. In March 2026, UN Secretary-General António Guterres called both for respect for Lebanon’s sovereignty and for stronger support to its armed forces so that they could become the country’s sole military force. That combination identifies what repeated unilateral intervention overlooks: security requires an institutional successor capable of governing after military operations end.

Where that capacity remains inadequate, another cycle becomes possible. Armed groups invoke external attacks to justify retaining their weapons; the state struggles to establish authority; Israel cites the continuing armed presence to justify further intervention. Hezbollah bears responsibility for its own decisions, but Israeli policies can reinforce the conditions sustaining its claim that the Lebanese state cannot protect the population.

The attack on Doha on September 9, 2025 extended this logic into the diplomatic sphere. Qatar was mediating negotiations involving Israel and Hamas when Israel struck Hamas representatives on its territory. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights condemned the attack as a breach of international law and an assault on mediation. The significance exceeded the violation of Qatari sovereignty: even a state facilitating negotiations could find its territory treated as an extension of the battlefield.

Mediation depends on practical assurances that communication with an adversary will remain possible. Targeting interlocutors in a mediating country makes those assurances harder to provide. It raises the costs of hosting negotiations and can undermine channels needed for ceasefires, hostage releases and humanitarian arrangements. Military reach may expand while opportunities for a political settlement contract.

Israel’s recognition of Somaliland in December 2025 raises a different sovereignty question along the region’s Red Sea periphery. Somaliland has maintained separate institutions for decades, and its claim to recognition has its own history. Nevertheless, Israel’s recognition challenged Somalia’s internationally recognized territorial framework. The African Union rejected the move and warned that such recognition could undermine peace and stability.

Recognition is not equivalent to bombardment, and the cases should not be collapsed into a single legal category. Their connection is political: the territorial arrangements on which other governments rely become subject to unilateral decisions shaped by Israeli interests. In an already contested regional environment, such decisions risk adding another dispute to fragile processes of state consolidation.

The confrontation with Iran illustrates the danger of extending preventive military logic to a powerful regional adversary. On February 28, 2026, Guterres condemned the use of force by the United States and Israel against Iran and Iran’s subsequent retaliation across the region. He warned that these actions undermined international peace and security. The escalation demonstrated how efforts to eliminate threats militarily can expose additional countries to attack.

Iran’s support for armed groups and its own military conduct cannot be excluded from this assessment. Nevertheless, degrading an adversary’s capabilities does not necessarily resolve the political incentives driving confrontation. It may instead encourage dispersal, rearmament or greater reliance on asymmetric methods. Tactical destruction can coexist with a more dangerous strategic environment.

The Palestinian case represents the most profound expression of this problem because it concerns both collective self-government and the conditions of human survival. In the West Bank, withholding revenues owed to the Palestinian Authority weakens the institutions expected to administer daily life.

The World Bank documented how the suspension of transfers in 2025 intensified fiscal distress, reduced salary payments and placed pressure on essential services. These measures undermine the practical foundations of Palestinian self-government.

A political authority cannot provide credible governance indefinitely while lacking reliable access to its own revenues. Weakening public administration also weakens its legitimacy, potentially benefiting actors who argue that institutional politics offers no meaningful route to Palestinian rights. The resulting dysfunction can then be invoked as evidence that Palestinians are incapable of governing themselves. Restrictions on capacity thus risk producing the very incapacity used to justify continued control.

In Gaza, the destruction has reached beyond institutional viability. The devastation of housing, healthcare, water systems and livelihoods, compounded by restrictions on humanitarian access, has endangered the material conditions necessary for life. In August 2025, a joint statement by UN agencies confirmed famine in Gaza Governorate and described a crisis involving starvation and preventable deaths. The issue was no longer merely whether Palestinians could build a state, but whether civilians could survive.

Hence, in Gaza, the denial of sovereignty has escalated into a denial of survival. In September 2025, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry concluded that Israel had committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Earlier, on November 21, 2024, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu, finding reasonable grounds to believe that he bore criminal responsibility for the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution and other inhumane acts. These findings expose the devastating human consequences of denying a population access to the essentials of life. The systematic destruction of civilian infrastructure and deprivation of food, water and medical care undermine Palestinians’ ability to survive as a community in their homeland. Viewed through this analysis, the genocide identified by the UN commission represents the most extreme manifestation of denial: a progression from obstructing a people’s capacity to govern themselves to destroying the conditions necessary for their continued existence.

Taken together, these cases suggest a self-reinforcing cycle. Military intervention and institutional weakening can generate insecurity, displacement and political fragmentation. Those conditions create opportunities for armed actors, whose activities then provide further grounds for intervention. This is a causal risk, not an inevitable outcome of every operation. Its importance lies in the contradiction between immediate military advantage and the requirements of lasting security.

Breaking that cycle requires a different measure of success: whether policies leave behind institutions capable of governing, populations able to live securely and diplomatic arrangements that reduce incentives for violence. Protecting Israeli civilians and respecting neighbouring societies’ sovereignty are mutually reinforcing necessities.

A regional order built around one state’s freedom to intervene and everyone else’s enforced vulnerability cannot offer durable peace. By denying others the capacity to govern—and, in Gaza, devastating the conditions necessary to survive—Israel risks perpetuating the insecurity from which it seeks protection.

The Anti-Defamation League reports each year on the state of antisemitism in the US. But its audit fails to disclose the fact that roughly 45% of so-called antisemitic incidents are actually anti-Israel or anti-Zionist.

RT | October 1, 2026

European NATO members should have been able to attack Iran instead of relying on the US and Israel, according to Secretary-General Mark Rutte, the head of the self-described defensive alliance.

Iran has been attacked twice in two years, both times over allegations that it seeks to develop nuclear weapons, which Tehran rejects as false. Speaking at the Euronews Defence & Space Summit on Friday, Rutte endorsed the idea that European nations should acquire the military capabilities needed to carry out such wars of aggression themselves.

In the future, “the Europeans will be able to take care of their backyard themselves. It should be us doing this, not the Americans,” he said.

“Europe was not able to take out the nuclear capability of Iran. We couldn’t. We didn’t have the capabilities. In 10 years, we can and we should,” he added, referring to multi-billion euro rearmament efforts now underway in European members of the military bloc.

Earlier in the day, the NATO chief dismissed Russian concerns over hostile rhetoric by some members of the bloc regarding the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad Region.

“Basically what we said is, ‘hey, listen, we are a defensive alliance, and stop the nuclear threat’,” he told journalists when asked about a formal warning Moscow had sent to Brussels.

Russia cited remarks by Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, who proposed in September deploying additional troops near the Russian border so that Moscow would be “uncertain of what we will do.” Moscow said it would use its “entire available arsenal” to defend Russian territory from a possible attack by NATO states.

NATO was created in the early years of the Cold War, ensuring a continued US military presence in Western Europe. The Soviet Union later established its own military alliance, the Warsaw Pact, which no longer exists.

While NATO describes itself as a defensive alliance, it has carried out military attacks against other countries, including the UK- and French-led 2011 intervention in Libya, after which the North African state was balkanized.

Russia considers NATO’s eastward expansion since the end of the Cold War a major national security threat and has cited it as one of the principal causes of the Ukraine conflict.

Rutte’s argument in support of the US-Israeli attacks on Iran echoed remarks by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who said in June 2025 that the Israelis were doing “[the] dirty work for us.”

Palestine This Week | Middle East Monitor | September 30, 2026

This week’s MEMO review examines claims about Netanyahu’s advance knowledge of 7 October, his provocative UN speech and Israel’s sweeping West Bank closure. We discuss calls to free Marwan Barghouti, moves to bar Arab-led parties from Israeli elections, Trump’s rejection of Iran’s proposal and allegations of election interference involving Israeli firms.

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction & Overview

01:41 Claims of Netanyahu’s Advance Knowledge of 7 October

18:14 Netanyahu’s UN Speech: Props, Provocations and Defiance

22:58 Israel’s West Bank Closure and Its Impact on Palestinians

26:30 Growing Calls to Free Marwan Barghouti

29:40 Israel’s Political Opposition and the Two-State Solution

35:00 Arab Party Disqualifications: Democracy and Apartheid

38:07 Trump Rejects Iran’s Proposal: What Was on Offer?

41:42 Meta’s Restrictions on Lula and Allegations of Israeli Election Interference

Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://tinyurl.com/447fpn8k

Visit our website: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/

By Justin K.P. | The Dissident | September 30, 2026

The U.S. Senate just voted 47-51 against a bill introduced by the Senators Chris Van Hollen, Tim Kaine and Bernie Sanders which would have “forced Secretary of State Marco Rubio to submit to Congress, within 30 days, a report on what information is available about the killings of the nine US citizens, the status of US and Israeli investigations into the killings, the number of US citizens currently held in Israeli prisons, the treatment of Palestinian children in Israeli prisons, and a description of the steps the US government has taken to reduce violence in the West Bank.”

In other words, the Zionist occupied Senate voted against releasing information about Israel killing American citizens in order to protect Israel.

The bill would have forced Marco Rubio to release the information about nine US citizens who have been killed by settlers and Israeli security forces, including the late Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was killed by Israeli occupation forces while reporting in the West Bank in 2022, an intentional murder that was covered up by the Biden administration.

The Biden administration covered up for Israel, claiming that her murder was the “result of tragic circumstances during an IDF-led military operation against factions of Palestinian Islamic Jihad”.

But later, the whistleblower Colonel Steve Gabavics, who worked at the time for the Office of the U.S. Security Coordinator in Jerusalem and led the investigation into Shireen Abu Akleh, revealed that his team found she was intentionally targeted, but the U.S. covered it up to protect Israel.

In an interview with Democracy Now!, he noted, “We were able to disprove very quickly the assertion that there was a Palestinian gunman in front of Shireen Abu Akleh, that the IDF had shot at, and they had accidentally shot her instead… the indications of everything we read from the reports that we got from the IDF on their locations, and proximity to where the event happened, what we got from the investigation from the Palestinian Authority, and our investigation, to us it was very clear that the (IDF) individual in the vehicle who took the shot, would have had a clear line of sight and would have had visibility of Shireen Abu Akleh walking down the middle of the street for a period of time before he took the shots”.

But he revealed that the Biden administration covered up this information, saying, “After we had completed this we were on regular video calls, classified and unclassified with the state department … I indicated that the evidence to me indicated that there would have been enough if we actually built a criminal case to have enough information and facts to beyond a reasonable doubt, for a conviction at some level. We were pushing for the fact that they needed to formally admit the fact that it was not an accident, that a (Israeli) soldier killed Shireen Abu Akleh, that it was an intentional shooting, and unfortunately, that was not what came out … When the actual statement came out, that was absolutely not what I expected… I was shocked … all the data indicates the exact opposite, it was not fog of war… This was not what we had found”.

He added, “It all came down to not trying to anger the Israelis by holding them accountable for intentionally killing an American citizen”.

Yet again, AIPAC-bought members of the Senate want to continue the cover-up of the Israeli murder of American citizens in order not to anger Israel and its lobby.

La teoria delle origini cazare degli ebrei ashkenaziti: un mito storico o una deliberata distorsione dei fatti? Gli argomenti storici, linguistici e genetici mettono in discussione l’idea delle radici cazare dell’ebraismo europeo.

Segue nostro Telegram.

Io amo la lingua, la cultura e la religione ebraica, che sono parte della comune famiglia abramitica, capace di legare indissolubilmente l’ebraismo al cristianesimo e all’Islam.

Allo stesso tempo reputo sempre necessario condannare e contrastare i crimini sionisti e dell’entità statuale israeliana, ugualmente criminale. Spiace, occorre dirlo, che molte comunità ebraiche in giro per il mondo solidarizzino con questi criminali, incrinando la possibile simpatia per la più antica tra le fedi abramitiche.

Ritengo altresì che si debba contrastare ogni forma di antisemitismo, a partire dalla volgare confusione tra l’odio per gli ebrei e l’ebraismo, sempre esecrabile, e la condanna di Israele e dei sionisti, sempre giusta, impellente e importante.

Tra i fenomeni di più spiacevole antisemitismo c’è la teoria, del tutto assurda e infondata, propalata da Arthur Koestler nel 1976 con il saggio “La tredicesima tribù”, secondo cui gli ebrei ashkenaziti d’Europa orientale non discenderebbero dagli antichi ebrei della Palestina romana, ma dai Cazari. Stupidaggine colossale e falsità assoluta.

I cazari, tribù nomade di origine turca dell’Asia centrale, governano tra il VII e il X secolo un khanato indipendente e potente, compreso tra il bacino della Volga, il Caucaso settentrionale e il Mar Caspio, poco dediti alle guerre e molto ai commerci, garantiscono il fluire delle mercanzie in viaggio attraverso la Via della Seta lungo le terre da loro controllate e gli scambi con i variaghi attraverso la Volga e il Don. Alleati dell’impero romano d’Oriente, si barcamenano nel difficile contenimento dei musulmani abbasidi che da Baghdad irradiano il potere e la scienza dello loro straordinario califfato.

Non è mai esistita una conversione dei cazari all’ebraismo, come ha spiegato con dovizia di documenti lo storico Shaul Stampfer, la conversione ha riguardato soltanto i sovrani e le loro famiglie, una bonaria scusa per sottrarsi a più vincolanti sottomissioni tanto verso l’Occidente cristiano, quanto vero l’Oriente islamico.

I cazari, popolo forte e numeroso, resta legato allo sciamanesimo di Tengrì, il cielo, tanto caro anche ai mongoli, pur con una porzione non indifferente di cazari convertitisi all’Islam e al cristianesimo, spesso per facilitare lo scambio commerciale con i vicini di quelle religioni.

Dunque i cazari non sono mai stati ebrei, solo i sovrani, ovvero una ristrettissima minoranza di quel popolo, hanno blandamente aderito alla religione mosaica. Insomma non si è mai prodotta una conversione di massa, come ad esempio a Kiev, quando il principe Vladimir nel 988 procede a far raccogliere gli abitanti della città sulle rive del Dniepr, infastidito dalle critiche di un vescovo venuto da Costantinopoli e inorridito dalle pratiche pagane osservate durante il lungo viaggio. Vladimir ordina contemporaneamente al popolo di immergersi nelle acque e al patriarca kievita, vicino a lui dall’alto della città fortificata, di impartire la benedizione per il più straordinario e colossale battesimo di massa della storia. Proprio in ragione di questa conversione al cristianesimo del popolo russo, Vladimir è ancora oggi celebrato come santo tanto dalla chiesa ortodossa, quanto da quella cattolica.

A quel tempo i cazari sono già scomparsi. Il padre e predecessore di Vladimir, il principe Sviatoslav I, sovrano della Rus’ di Kiev, scatena alla metà del X secolo una guerra insieme ai romani d’Oriente e ai nomadi peceneghi contro i cazari, ne conquista l’interezza del territorio, rade al suolo la capitale Itil e cancella, con la morte dei sovrani, ogni traccia di ebraismo cazaro.

Quelle terre saranno abitate e governate, oltre che dai russi, dai bulgari della Volga, dai cumani, dai calmucchi, dai cabardini. Ridicolo che si richiamino i cazari, scomparsi da oltre mille anni, per raccontare qualcosa che non li riguarda, ovviamente la popolazione cazara non evapora nel nulla, ma nemmeno migra, subisce come sempre accade nella storia in questi casi, un lento processo di frammentazione e assimilazione ai nuovi gruppi dominanti sul suo territorio, perdendo con il tempo, in assenza di una radicata alfabetizzazione, ogni traccia della passata cultura, in ogni caso in nulla e per nulla ebraica.

Consiglio piuttosto di visitare il museo ebraico di Mosca, delle grandi carte geografiche scorrono su uno schermo elettronico e raccontano con evidenza come nel regno di Ivan il Terribile alla fine del XVI secolo non abitasse nelle Russie nemmeno un ebreo, mentre, agli albori del XIX secolo oltre i tre quarti degli ebrei di tutto il mondo fossero cittadini dell’impero russo.

Come si è creato questo fenomeno in poco più di due secoli?

Occorre studiare la storia delle comunità ebraiche dopo la distruzione di Gerusalemme nel 70 dopo Cristo. Per capire come si siano formate le comunità sefardita e quella ashkenazita.

Laddove si preferisca evitare i polverosi tomi scritti dagli storici, ecco che ci viene in soccorso uno straordinario romanzo, forse il più bello di Abraham Yehoshua, ovvero “Viaggio alla fine del millennio”, i fatti narrati si svolgono nell’anno 999, quando gli ebrei franco – tedeschi, dopo aver assorbito la cultura dei loro vicini cristiani, provano orrore per il correligionario ebreo nordafricano che come i suoi vicini musulmani ha due mogli. I primi, gli europei, decidono di non commerciare più con il secondo, che reputano un peccatore. A poco servirà un tentativo di porre soluzione alla disputa con un confronto tra due rabbini, uno per parte, dentro la sinagoga di Worms, la più antica del vecchio continente.

Gli ebrei immersi nell’Islam son diventati sefarditi, quelli dell’Europa occidentale sono diventati ashkenaziti, questi ultimi in terra germanica hanno sviluppato una nuova lingua: l’yiddish, nata proprio negli anni in cui è ambientato il romanzo citato. L’yiddish è una lingua dalle profonde inferenze antico – tedesche, come qualsiasi linguista può confermare, per altro con nessuna connessione con le lingue turchidi o mongole e i pochi elementi slavi derivanti dalla successiva e tardiva prossimità con il mondo russo.

Quelle comunità ebraiche, per l’intolleranza prima cattolica e poi luterana si spostano verso Oriente, entrando nel regno polacco – lituano, formando i noti shtetl, piccoli villaggi di contadini poveri, quando queste terre sono entrare a far parte dell’impero russo, piccoli gruppi sono andati ancora più ad Oriente, nell’attuale Russia e Bielorussia.

Ecco spiegato in modo inequivocabile come la presenza ebraica in Russia sia il frutto di una migrazione da occidente verso oriente delle comunità ebraiche ashkenazite, che si sono portate appresso la loro cultura, la loro nuova lingua, le loro tradizioni.

L’invenzione del viaggio al contrario, da est a ovest, di un fantasmagorico ebraismo cazaro – ashkenazita è stato dimostrato essere totalmente falsa da tutti i documenti storici, dunque una pessima trovata antisemita.

Altro fatto è voler attribuire qualche malefatta nel corso della modernità o talune responsabilità alle arricchite borghesie occidentali, che del colonialismo, dello schiavismo, della subordinazione dei contadini e degli operai dopo la rivoluzione industriale hanno fatto il volano per le loro personalissime ricchezze a danno di porzioni rilevanti dell’umanità. A questa costruzione del bestiale sfruttamento dell’uomo sull’uomo hanno partecipato evidentemente anche i Rockefeller e i Rothschild, tenendo però presente che i primi sono forse di origine ebraico – francese, ma poi da secoli comunque cristiano – protestanti ugonotti in fuga verso le Americhe, i secondi ebreo – tedeschi, con origini nella nobiltà austriaca.

Di più. I fatti storici dovrebbero essere sufficienti a smentire anche le tesi palesemente assurde e sgangherate, tuttavia un’ulteriore dimostrazione dell’inesistenza di un ebraismo cazaro ci è offerta dalla scienza con le moderne modalità di studio genetico. Il DNA degli ashkenaziti rimanda agli avi mediorientali e ai più secolarmente recenti imparentamenti con gli europei occidentali, niente di slavo, mongolo, turchide o centro – asiatico, quindi nulla e poi nulla dei lontani cazari, anzi, i geni maschili sono chiaramente mediorientali, quelli femminili rimandano non solo all’Europa occidentale, ma anche a quella meridionale, in particolare italiana, a sostanziare una lunga permanenza delle comunità ebraiche nel territorio dell’impero romano, prima di muoversi verso settentrione dopo la scomparsa di questo al tempo delle invasioni barbariche.

Credo dunque che si debbano lasciare i simpatici cazari al loro sperduto passato mercantile, contrastare i crimini del presente operati da sionisti e israeliani e soprattutto agire sempre contro ogni forma di antisemitismo.