International Glance
Since October, former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale has been quietly overseeing an operation posting hundreds of blog posts on behalf of Israel. One article, titled “The Reality Behind Gaza’s ‘Journalists’: Terror Ties, Propaganda, and the Laws of War,” asserts that a majority of journalists in Gaza were linked to terrorist organizations. Another casts doubt on the killing of Hind Rajab, a five-year-old Palestinian girl killed by the Israeli military in 2024.
The key intended audience of these sites is not concerned Americans, it’s not even humans—most of the sites average a few hundred unique visitors each month. Instead, Parscale and his firm, Clock Tower X, created them as part of a $46.5 million contract with the Israeli government to try and influence artificial intelligence-powered chatbots, tools like Claude or ChatGPT.
Parscale has made his goal of influencing artificial intelligence—often referred to as “LLM poisoning”—explicit. In his initial agreement with Israel, Parscale said that he would deploy “websites and content to deliver GPT framing results on GPT conversations” as part of the contract. More recently, his team even told Axios they are “seeing success” at getting popular AI systems to incorporate information from their sites, though they declined thttps://www.dropsitenews.com/p/israel-brad-parscale-ai-chatbots-gazao provide data.
Israel Is Paying Millions to Train AI Chatbots How to Talk About Gaza. It's Working.
Who is Gadi Eisenkot, the former army chief challenging Netanyahu?
The fallout from the Hamas-led attacks of 7 October 2023, Israel's military campaigns across the Middle East and the contentious issue of conscripting ultra-Orthodox Jewish men have reshaped the country's political landscape, eroding support for Netanyahu and his governing coalition.
At the centre of that shift is Gadi Eisenkot, the former army chief who has emerged as the prime minister's strongest challenger.
With Israelis due to vote on 27 October, opinion polls consistently suggest that Netanyahu's Likud party and its allies are struggling to secure the 61-seat parliamentary majority needed to form a government.
Eisenkot now leads a broad opposition bloc spanning right-wing, centrist, left-wing Jewish and Palestinian parties, with recent polling suggesting he has the strongest chance yet of ending Netanyahu's long grip on power.
Zelensky’s Poland Visit Was ‘First-Rate’ Move to Reset Ties, Veteran Top US Diplomat Says
Zelensky met Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk in Lublin on Wednesday, following weeks of heightened friction over historical memory, bilateral political disputes and the treatment of Ukrainians in Poland.
Their talks covered defense cooperation, historical grievances and the security of Ukrainian refugees, but the broader message was unmistakable: Poland and Ukraine cannot afford to let disputes over the past weaken their ability to confront the Russian threat they face today.
For Fried, who served as US ambassador to Poland from 1997 to 2000 and later as assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, the meeting marked an important shift back toward strategic realism.
“It was an excellent step,” Fried said. “This was a first-rate, wise move by President Zelensky, and I suspect that there have been productive contacts between Poles and Ukrainians.”
US Senator Graham offered military support for Israeli war on Lebanon, new footage shows
Just one day before his funeral is set to take place in Washington, DC, video footage has emerged showing a gleeful Senator Lindsey Graham rejoicing at the launch of the US-Israeli war on Iran, and even single-handedly offering US military involvement to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his war on Lebanon.
The clips are from British filmmaker Alex Holder, who has been following Graham for the last three years for a documentary on his relationship with President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Holder appears to have been granted access to staff meetings on Capitol Hill as well as discussions Graham had with national and foreign leaders, including the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.
"I almost cried. How long have we been pushing this?" Graham is seen asking members of his office in one clip, as he watched Trump give remarks to the press five days into the launch of the war on Iran.
"[Trump] loves blowing stuff up," Graham said.
"There are a lot of people inside that didn't want to do it. So I've had my challenges. President Trump, when he gets into the zone, he listens, asks good questions. You know, no tweeting... He's been a great wartime president," he added.
Waves of settler attacks target mosques, homes and businesses across West Bank
Israeli settlers on Sunday launched a series of widespread attacks across the West Bank, setting on fire two mosques in Nablus and Tulkarm and damaging heavy equipment at an industrial facility near Ramallah.
Eyewitnesses told Middle East Eye that settlers also raided several towns and villages, attacked homes, destroyed vehicles and fired live ammunition to terrorise residents.
The attacks targeted communities in the governorates of Nablus, Tulkarm, Ramallah, Hebron, Salfit, Qalqilya, Jericho and Jerusalem, according to Palestinian officials who said settlers were acting under the protection of Israeli forces.
In the village of Qusra, south of Nablus, Israeli settlers burned large parts of the al-Rahma mosque and spray-painted racist slogans in Hebrew on its walls.
Activist Abdul-Azim Wadi, from the village, told MEE that he received a call at 2:30 am informing him that settlers had burned the mosque, located in the southwestern part of the village.
Netanyahu accuses Mamdani of ‘fomenting hate’ in calls for PM’s arrest
Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that Zohran Mamdani, the New York City mayor, is “fomenting hate” by calling the Israeli prime minister a war criminal who should be arrested over Israel’s war in Gaza if he visits the city for the United Nations general assembly.
Netanyahu said he intends to be in New York in September to address the annual UN gathering of world leaders, despite the mayor’s suggestion that he is not welcome. Mamdani said on Wednesday that while New York City does not have legal authority to execute an arrest warrant issued by the world’s top war crimes court, he encouraged the federal government to do so.
“He’s supposed to be the mayor of all New Yorkers – Jews, Christians, Muslims, everyone,” Netanyahu said on the Fox News channel’s Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo. “But he’s trying to turn one group against the other.”
The prime minister has become an increasingly polarizing figure over Israel’s war in Gaza, which was ignited by the 7 October 2023 deadly attack on southern Israel by Hamas militants. Israel also joined the US in starting the war against Iran on 28 February before launching a ground invasion in southern Lebanon in response to fire from the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group.
Pope Francis Dies: First Latin American Pope, Voice Of Progressive Outreach In the Catholic Church Was 88
Pope Francis, leader of the Catholic Church for the past 12 years, died Monday at age 88 after a period of significant health challenges. Francis, whose background and social stances made him unique among popes, leaves behind a legacy of attempts to reorient the Catholic Church toward vulnerable populations, both internally and politically.
Born Jorge Mario Bergoglio in Argentina, Francis became pope in 2013 following the resignation of his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI. The BBC reported that his election made Francis the first Latin American pope in history and the first pope in centuries to take office while his predecessor was still alive. Francis was also the first pope to be a member of the Society of Jesus, also known as the Jesuits, a Catholic religious order known for its missionary work and public service; he adopted the name Francis in honor of St. Francis of Assisi, founder of the Franciscan religious order.
According to The Associated Press, as pope, Francis embodied the humility and lack of self-aggrandizement represented by these religious orders; he lived in the Vatican hotel instead of the palatial Apostolic Palace, rode in a small car, and wore simple shoes instead of the traditional red loafers of previous popes.
As pope, Francis set a progressive tone for the Catholic Church, per The Guardian. Francis promoted greater incorporation of LGBTQ+ people, women and divorced Catholics into Church life and sometimes leadership positions. While he didn’t generally change official Church doctrine concerning these issues, his tone and willingness to interpret Catholic teachings in more inclusive ways were very different from his socially conservative predecessors.
While not going far enough for some progressives, Francis’ social policies drew anger and opposition from many traditionalists in the Catholic Church, including the generally conservative contingent of United States bishops who sometimes questioned his policies and leadership, according to PBS. Francis’ relationship with the U.S. branch of the Church was not all negative, however. In 2020, he appointed Washington, D.C.’s Archbishop Wilton Gregory as the first Black American cardinal in the Catholic Church.
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