Kompromat and Gaza
Summary: the unproven conspiracy theory that U.S. support for Israel is fuelled by blackmail from an Israeli-run Epstein operation inverts the racist trope of Arab sexual deviance used to justify violence against Palestinians. Such speculation dangerously echoes antisemitic myths and undermines the U.S.-Israel relationship.
Why doesn’t Trump stop the genocide? As the conflict in Gaza continues, questions about the unwavering U.S. support for Israel, particularly from Donald Trump, persist. This support is exemplified by high-profile visits from U.S. officials, including Marco Rubio and Mike Huckabee praying with Netanyahu and the largest-ever delegation of U.S. legislators visiting Israel.
A controversial theory, proposed by among others the late American right-wing political activist Charlie Kirk and former Israeli intelligence officer Ari Ben Menashe, suggests this support may be fuelled by blackmail. The theory posits that kompromat (compromising information collected for manipulating someone) collected by the late Jeffrey Epstein is being used to influence Trump and other senior U.S. officials. While hotly denied and entirely unproven, a significant amount of circumstantial evidence fuels this speculation.
The connection between Trump and Epstein is well-documented. They had a long-standing relationship, with Trump himself stating in 2002, “I've known Jeffrey for 15 years. Terrific guy. He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.” Epstein’s black book contained 14 numbers for Trump, who Epstein described as his “closest friend”. Epstein’s biographer claimed to have been shown photos of Trump with topless young girls on his lap, and his most famous victim, Virginia Giuffre, was recruited from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club. A recently revealed birthday card from Trump to Epstein, signed with the phrase “May every day be another wonderful secret,” adds to the intrigue. (The White House has denied that the letter is authentic, saying the president "did not draw this picture, and he did not sign it".)
The plot deepens with the Israeli connection, primarily through Ehud Barak, the former Prime Minister and head of Israeli military intelligence. Barak was a close friend of Epstein, visiting him numerous times even after Epstein’s conviction as a sex offender. Leaked emails confirm their extensive personal relationship.
Mark Epstein, Jeffrey’s brother, believes his brother was murdered in a “professional hit” to silence him, noting that pathologists could not rule out homicide. He also claims Jeffrey told him during the 2016 election that he possessed information on both candidates that could cancel the election if revealed.
While this does not constitute proof of a state-sponsored blackmail operation, the circumstantial evidence is damaging to U.S.-Israeli relations. It raises a disturbing question in the public mind: could U.S. support for Israel’s actions be motivated by blackmail rather than policy?
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Four people were arrested for projecting images of Trump and Epstein together on Windsor Castle, where Donald Trump was set to meet the King
This theory also directly challenges a core justification used to support Israel and vilify Palestinians. For decades, a potent racist trope has been employed: the portrayal of Arab and Muslim men as inherently predatory and sexually deviant. This colonial-era “othering” frames the conflict not as a political struggle over land, but as a primal battle between civilization and barbarism.
Israeli media and politicians have long peddled the stereotype of Arab men’s “uncontrollable, animalistic sexuality” as a threat to Jewish women, justifying control and violence to protect “the purity of the nation.” Extensive work on discriminatory laws and racist incitement by Adalah, the Legal Centre for Arab Minority Rights in Israel and Yesh Din - Volunteers for Human Rights provides countless examples of such dehumanising rhetoric. Racist sexual stereotypes were also used to justify expulsions in 1948 based on debunked myths of mass rape, as documented by historians like Ilan Pappé.
This trope resurfaced powerfully after October 7th, with widespread reports of systematic sexual violence by Hamas. While no actual rape victim was ever identified and many claims have been comprehensively debunked, these reports were instantly instrumentalised within a racist framework to dehumanise all Palestinians, painting them as inherently barbaric and thus making retaliation, collective punishment, and the current violence seem justifiable.
A more modern variant is the smear that Palestinian men are predisposed to pedophilia. This ultimate dehumanisation, labeling an entire people as a threat to children, justifies extreme measures like the blockade of Gaza as a necessary “quarantine.” It creates a simple binary: Israelis are modern, rational, and protective of women and children; Palestinians are backward, irrational, and predatory. This framing deflects any criticism of Israeli policy as support for “barbarism.”
The Epstein case inverts this entire narrative. Instead of Arab pedophiles preying on Jewish children, suspicion falls on a potential state-sponsored ring, masterminded by a Jew, allegedly involving Israeli intelligence, systematically abusing white American children to blackmail U.S. elites to secure the state of Israel.
This inversion is deeply shocking and problematic because it unfortunately aligns with classic antisemitic canards like the “Blood Libel” (the ancient false accusation that Jews murder children for rituals) and the trope of a secretive Jewish cabal manipulating world events, as found in the fraudulent Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
It is crucial to state that the theory of Israeli government involvement is unproven and denied by U.S. authorities. The official view is that Epstein was a criminal with a multinational network acting for personal gain, not state-level espionage.
However, the longer the U.S. government withholds the full Epstein files, the more it feeds these dangerous conspiracy theories. Whether released or not, the speculation itself, intertwining real crimes with ancient hatreds, undermines the foundation of U.S.-Israeli relations, potentially making this the last U.S. administration to stand unconditionally by the Israeli state.
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