What happens when history is used as a shield instead of a warning?
🌍 And what gets erased when the world’s attention shifts elsewhere?

As war dominates headlines in Ukraine and tensions escalate with Iran, something else quietly slips out of focus:Gaza. The West Bank. Ongoing occupation, displacement, and mass violence.
This conversation refuses that drift.

🎙️ My guest is Carolyn Genteler — activist, longtime campaigner for Palestinian rights, and daughter of a Holocaust survivor. She speaks from a position that is rarely given space: inside Jewish history, yet firmly opposed to Zionism and the moral exemptions claimed in its name.

This is not a debate about slogans or identity politics.
It is a conversation about:

🧠 Indoctrination and how it survives generations
⚖️ Victimhood — real, inherited, and politically weaponised
🚨 October 7th and what it interrupted, not what it began
🧱 Checkpoints, arrests, and the everyday mechanics of occupation
🚓 Criminalising dissent and why peaceful resistance is now labelled extremism
🕯️ The refusal to surrender humanity — even when it would be easier to do so

One moment in this interview cuts to the core:
“If my father had gone to Palestine instead of Australia, I could be that soldier.The only difference is that I refuse to lose my humanity.”
This is a conversation about memory versus conscience, about how easily violence becomes background noise — and how distraction can be as powerful as denial.

📌 If you’re looking for outrage, this isn’t it.
📌 If you’re looking for clarity, discomfort, and moral seriousness — you’re in the right place.
🔔 Subscribe for long-form interviews on power, propaganda, psychology, and geopolitics

📂 Full archives & uncensored work on my Substack: https://karat.substack.com

💬 Join the discussion respectfully in the comments

Time stamps:
00:00 Introduction – Identity, Holocaust Legacy, and Why Jewish Voices Are Amplified
11:02 Zionism vs Judaism – Indoctrination, Victimhood, and Internal Jewish Hierarchies
10:34 From Committed Zionist to First Cracks – Israel, Kibbutz Life, and Racism Experienced
31:41 Palestine Witnessing – Checkpoints, Arrests, and the Moment You Cannot “Unsee”
49:33 October 7th – State Knowledge, Manufactured Consent, and Political Utility
57:31 Criminalising Dissent – Palestine Action, Arrests, and the End of Liberal Pretence

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🧠 What happens when state power no longer needs courts?

In this wide-ranging conversation, I speak with Dr. Alexandra Hofer, Assistant Professor of Public International Law, about the quiet transformation of power in Europe — and why sanctions, digital infrastructure, and executive authority are beginning to converge in ways that should concern anyone who values due process and free expression.

We start with EU sanctions — not against states, but against individuals. Journalists. Academics. Commentators. What does it mean when financial access can be frozen, travel restricted, and digital life disrupted without a trial?

⚖️ Dr. Hofer describes modern sanctions as something that has been called a “civil death penalty” — imposed administratively, often without meaningful judicial review.

From there, we zoom out:
💳 Financial control and asset freezes
🆔 Digital IDs and conditional access
🌐 Speech, dissent, and “misinformation” frameworks
🏛️ EU executive power vs. democratic accountability
🔥 Double standards in international law (Ukraine, Gaza, Israel, Iran)
🧩 Why many international lawyers are experiencing a crisis of faith in the rules-based order

This is not a partisan conversation. It’s a structural one — about how authority now operates, how exceptional measures become normalized, and how quickly legal safeguards can erode once power shifts from courts to councils.

If you care about sovereignty, civil liberties, free expression, or the future of democratic systems in a digitized world, this conversation is for you.

👉 Follow my work on Substack (https://karat.substack.com): 

My YouTube reach is increasingly throttled, while Substack remains direct, uncensored, and uninterrupted.

🔔 Subscribe • 👍 Like • 💬 Comment — and share if you think this discussion matters.

Time Stamps:
00:00 Intro
04:07 Introduction to Dr. Alexandra Hofer
06:05 Understanding State Power and Sanctions
10:20 The Evolution of EU Sanction Policies
14:12 Consequences of Sanctions on Individual Rights
18:00 The Future of State Power and Totalitarianism
22:01 Digital IDs and Central Bank Digital Currencies
26:18 Censorship and Information Control
30:07 Trump's Influence on International Relations
34:04 Conclusion and Reflections on Global Power Dynamics
35:02 Economic Policies and Their Consequences
38:21 The Shift from State Power to Corporate Power
41:46 The Role of Data and Surveillance in Society
43:34 The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and Statehood
48:40 International Law: Hypocrisy and Double Standards
55:47 The Crisis of Faith in International Law
60:58 The Future of the Dollar and Global Power Dynamics

🧠 Long-form interviews, media analysis, and power structures — beyond headlines.

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Arab diplomats almost never get to explain the Middle East in their own words.This interview breaks that pattern.

In this conversation, I speak with Mohammed Elsoukkary, former Egyptian diplomat and deputy ambassador, about how Egypt actually sees the region it operates in — Israel, Gaza, Iran, and the United States — stripped of Western framing and moral theater.

Rather than slogans about “peace” or “escalation,” we talk constraints: why the Egypt–Israel peace treaty still functions as a strategic necessity, why normalization with Israel carries real domestic risks across the Arab world, and why Gaza represents a non-negotiable red line for Cairo.

We also explore something rarely discussed publicly: 
how AI is beginning to shape diplomatic decision-making — and how efficiency can quietly turn into strategic blindness.
This is not a debate. It’s a reality check.

Further Links:
Mohammed’s Substack: https://substack.com/@souks
Thomas Karat’s Substack: https://karat.substack.com

The Gathering Storm: https://karat.substack.com/p/manufacturing-consent-before-the

Time Stamps:
05:18 Introduction and Background of Mohammed Elsoukkary
08:12 Egypt's Current Geopolitical Landscape
11:19 The Evolution of Egypt's Political Landscape
14:19 Egypt's Strategic Relationship with the United States
17:18 The Role of the Egyptian Foreign Service
20:08 The Israel–Egypt Peace Treaty: A Lasting Agreement
23:25 Normalization of Relations with Israel: Arab Perspectives

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What happens when a veteran from the Associated Press and a behavior analyst sit down—not to agree, but to think out loud?

In this wide-ranging conversation, Dan Perry, former AP chief for Europe, Africa, the Middle East and the Caribbean, joins Thomas S. Karat for an unscripted, sometimes uncomfortable, but deliberately honest exchange about where the world finds itself now—not where it was supposed to be.

This is not a checklist interview. It’s a collision of perspectives.
Starting from the shockwaves of Trump’s return to power and the strangely insulated atmosphere at Davos, the discussion moves through deeper structural questions: who actually holds power today, which institutions still constrain it, and which ones are quietly eroding. Tariffs, courts, executive authority, and the role of so-called “middle powers” are not treated as abstract policy issues, but as signals—symptoms of a global order that no longer behaves as advertised.

The conversation then turns, inevitably, to Israel–Palestine. Not in slogans, not in absolutes, but in hard contradictions. Gaza, Hamas, Israeli politics, resistance, legitimacy, and the narrowing space for political imagination are examined without pretending there are clean answers. Karat presses on how narratives are formed; Perry pushes back from long experience inside global media institutions. At times they agree. Often they don’t. That tension is the point.

Running beneath everything is a shared concern—even when conclusions diverge—about democracy under pressure and journalism’s role in that struggle. What happens when media no longer mediates reality but filters it? When courts become political terrain? When public discourse collapses into moral binaries?

This interview is for viewers who are less interested in being told what to think, and more interested in understanding how serious people think under conditions of uncertainty, power, and conflict.
If you’re looking for comfort, this isn’t it.If you’re looking for clarity through friction—you’re in the right place.

🔔 Subscribe for long-form interviews and behavioral analysis of global politics
🧠 Thomas S. Karat Substack: https:// karat.substack.com
🧠 Dan Perry Substack: https://predictivehistory.substack.com
💬 Join the discussion in the comments (disagreement welcome, slogans not required)

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What does it look like when a war is being pre-sold—not with one big lie, but with hundreds of small linguistic nudges?

In this live conversation, we walk you through a headline-level pattern based on ~230+ articles across multiple countries: Iran is framed as the actor (“threatens,” “refuses,” “days are numbered”), while the U.S. build-up is framed as reaction (“prepares,” “weighs options,” “responds”). 

If most people only skim headlines, the headline becomes the policy environment.

From there, the discussion widens into something darker: the idea that “information space management” isn’t a metaphor anymore—especially with NATO explicitly discussing “cognitive” domains as a theater of competition.

Then Reiner Rupp (Reiner Rupp)—a former insider who knew how alliances message and posture—adds the military-strategic layer: deterrence vs provocation, escalation risk, and why “baiting the first shot” is an old playbook that keeps resurfacing in new packaging.

This isn’t a “what to think” episode. It’s a “watch how your attention is steered” episode—where the tempo, the repetition, the missing voices, and the shifting justifications are treated as the real story.

Further Readings:
📌 Manufacturing consent before the bombs drop: https://karat.substack.com/p/manufacturing-consent-before-the

🧠 NATO cognitive warfare: https://karat.substack.com/p/cognitive-warfare


Time stamps:
00:00 — The “headline dataset” move: why headlines are the battleground, not the footnotes
07:40 — Defensive U.S. / aggressive Iran framing: how verbs do geopolitics for you
18:25 — The urgency drumbeat: “time is running out” as a perception hack
32:10 — IRGC designation + rapid synchronization: when policy steps and media tempo converge
46:30 — Hard constraints behind the rhetoric: missile-defense depletion, procurement limits, and escalation math

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We’re entering a new dark age — and the signs are everywhere.Not just in foreign policy, where international law is treated like a PR costume… but at home, where speech is increasingly policed, dissent is stigmatized, and criticism is quietly rebranded as “hate.”

In this interview, former U.S. diplomat Chas Freeman argues we’re watching an epochal shift: the end of the post-war promise that conflict would be restrained by rules, institutions, and law. Instead, power is reverting to something older and uglier — coercion, intimidation, and what Freeman calls a kind of “gangster logic.”

And here’s the deeper point: lawlessness abroad doesn’t stay abroad.When states normalize impunity overseas, it boomerangs back into domestic politics — as censorship, surveillance, and control — always framed as “security,” “stability,” or “values.”

🧠 In this conversation we explore:
why the “rules-based order” is collapsing in real time
how international law is being replaced by raw leverage
what this means for Europe, NATO, and strategic dependency
why “hate speech” narratives are increasingly used to silence legitimate criticism
how Western democracies drift toward managed speech and managed reality

If you’re tired of propaganda, moral theater, and mainstream narratives that don’t survive basic scrutiny — this interview is for you.

📌 Chapters are included below
🔔 Join me on Substack: https://karat.substack.com
🔔 Join me on Medium for Euro centric Analysis: https://medium.com/@thomas.s.karat

💬 Comment: Do you feel the “dark age” is already here — or still coming?

Time Stamps:
00:00 Intro
00:09:35 — The Shooting: What Really Happened (Narrative vs Reality)
00:29:29 — “Mafia Don” Geopolitics (Threats, Leverage, Power Politics)
00:40:07 — Ukraine as the Battleground (Spheres of Influence, NATO Logic)
01:09:19 — Propaganda, History & Political Theatre (Hitler, Cinema, Mass Psychology)

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🇮🇷 Iran is spiraling out of control again — and the West is already circling.
In this interview, I’m joined by Yassamine Mather — an Oxford scholar and razor-sharp political analyst — to break down the new wave of unrest across Iran, what’s driving it, and why Trump may be preparing the ground for “absolute change” in 2026. 

We don’t just talk about protests. We talk about power, propaganda, and the uncomfortable possibility that some actors are trying to engineer the outcome — using everything from sanctions and currency warfare to fake reels amplified by mainstream media.

🎯 In this conversation:
Why Trump may see Iran as the next domino
The hidden war: sanctions, economic collapse & corruption
How the exchange-rate system enriched elites and crushed ordinary Iranians
Internet shutdowns, Starlink leaks, and the fog of information war
Why “fake news” can become real political reality
The Mossad/Pahlavi question — and why protesters reject both Shah and Rahbar
The bigger frame: Iran isn’t the target — China is

⚠️ Key question:
Is this uprising organic, hijacked, or already being shaped into a controlled “transition”?

📌 More from me
Substack: https://karat.substack.com
Medium: https://medium.com/@thomas.s.karat

👉 If you want weekly updates that follow the questions to wherever they’re not supposed to go, you’ll find them there.

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“How Western Media Sells War” is a deep-dive conversation with journalist and broadcaster Patrick Henningsen, founder of 21st Century Wire, on how conflict is packaged, branded, and sold to the public through news and entertainment.

We look at:
*   How language, imagery, and repetition turn military campaigns into “humanitarian interventions” or “defensive actions”.
*   The role of think tanks, PR firms, and political elites in feeding ready‑made narratives into Western newsrooms.
*   Why dissenting voices are marginalised, smeared, or algorithmically buried when war agendas are on the table.

If this interview opens up more questions, don’t stop here. For global geopolitics and narrative warfare, you can find my long-form pieces on Substack; for a Europe-first, Eurocentric take on power, autonomy, and identity, my essays are on Medium.

My Substack: https://karat.substack.com
My Medium: https://medium.com/@thomas.s.karat


Further Links:
Patrick Baab: https://youtu.be/AJZMb8KxGn4
Suzie Dawson: https://youtu.be/Cza4LHImyQM
Daniele Ganser: https://youtu.be/DoTUFeKZB5A
Erik Andersson: https://youtu.be/91WoRwDsnc0

Article on Libertarian Institute: https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/europe-is-americas-sacrifice/

Your iPhone is spying on you: https://karat.substack.com/p/your-iphones-new-ai-is-spying-on

Time Stamps:
00:00 Intro
02:10 Who is Patrick
03:10 Silencing critical voices
13:00 The consensus for war with Russia
26:45 Total transformation of the energy marked
37:35 How Anglo-American interests collide with Europe
48:10 Trump National Security Strategy
01:13:40 NATO Bombs on West Europe

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🔥 History is never just about the past — it’s a battlefield for the present. In this interview, we explore how elites rewrite historical narratives to manufacture legitimacy, shape public memory, and consolidate political power. From the self-mythology of Ramesses II to the propaganda logic captured by George Orwell’s warning — “Who controls the past controls the future” — we examine how history becomes a strategic instrument rather than a neutral record.

We also look at the work of Guido Preparata, whose investigations into the First and Second World Wars challenge the “official story” and expose how finance, strategy, and elite interests were woven into narratives later presented as moral inevitability. What happens when memory itself is engineered? What truths disappear when history becomes a tool of governance?

If you’re interested in propaganda, historical mythmaking, power, and the politics of collective memory, this conversation will push you to question how much of the past we truly know — and how much of it has been curated for us.
👉 Watch the interview — and ask yourself: Who is writing history, and why?

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“Never Again” is repeated every year. Rarely is it tested.

In this interview, I speak with Mark Etkind, the son of a Holocaust survivor who endured the Łódź Ghetto and multiple concentration camps, including Buchenwald. Mark is also a leading voice among Holocaust survivors’ descendants who have spoken out against the destruction of Gaza — a position that has made him deeply controversial within parts of the Jewish community and the political mainstream.

Mark challenges the idea that Holocaust remembrance can be safely sealed off from the present. He argues that memory without consequence becomes ritual, and ritual without moral risk becomes cover. When institutions commemorate the Holocaust while remaining silent on Gaza, he sees not neutrality, but evasion.

We talk about why drawing historical parallels provokes such intense backlash, where the line between remembrance and politicisation is really drawn, and why “Never Again” loses meaning when it applies only to the past — or only to some victims, and not others.
This is not a comfortable conversation. It is not meant to be. But if Holocaust memory is to mean more than ceremony, then voices like Mark Etkind’s demand to be heard.

📌 Full context, background analysis, and related writing available on my Substack.📌  https://substack.com/@thomaskarat

Time Stamps:
00:00 Intro
05:50 Who is Mark
16:50 Integrating Survivors
34:30 Changing a World View
46:20 The Greater Israel
01:12:55 Jeremy Corbyn

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