What is terrorism? And who decides who is a terrorist and who isn’t? This vague, politically malleable concept has become the justification for a global American war against terrorism that spans 78 countries — more than a third of all nations. At home, it's handed local police departments $34 billion to buy military equipment, turning terrorism into a catch-all excuse for militarizing American communities.
In this episode of Always at War, we talk with national security law expert Elizabeth Beavers to unpack how terrorism designations work as political tools rather than security measures — keeping Nelson Mandela out of America until 2008, shutting down the biggest Muslim charity in the country, and now threatening Gaza protesters with prosecution.
We trace how terrorism laws originated in anti-Palestinian activism and evolved into a legal framework so broad that it criminalizes giving "expert advice" to designated groups. Through examples like the Holy Land Foundation — whose leaders went to prison for charity work the government admitted reached legitimate recipients — we show how these laws are designed not to stop violence, but to suppress political dissent and enforce American geopolitical interests.
The episode reveals how America’s Global War on Terror did little to eliminate “terrorism” – a potentially impossible goal – but to create an endless justification for global American dominance.
By declaring war on a concept rather than specific enemies, we've built a system where peace becomes impossible and every corner of the globe becomes a potential battlefield — all while the vague definition of "terrorism" expands to include anyone who challenges American interests.
C. Kaye Rawlings is the lead digital strategist at the Quincy Institute and the co-host of the Always at War podcast. She received her Ph.D. in Art History, with a specialization in the history of architecture, in 2023 from Emory University.
A newly created firm called Show Faith by Works is carrying out a $3.2 million outreach and digital targeting campaign to Christian churches in the western United States on behalf of the Israeli government. The firm’s goal, as described in its filing under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, is to increase “positive associations with the Nation of Israel, while linking the Palestinian population with extremist factors.”
Show Faith by Works will carry out the campaign through December for its work, which includes targeting churchgoers with pro-Israel ads “geofencing” major churches, hiring celebrity spokespeople, and visiting churches and colleges with a mobile trailer called the “10/7 Experience” on behalf of the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
In one slide of the proposed plan, the firm listed a number of potential “Christian Celebrity Spokespeople” for Israel, including actors Jon Voight and Chris Pratt, former NFL player Tim Tebow, NBA player Steph Curry, and a number of megachurch pastors. According to the document, the athletes and celebrities would be expected to “deliver pro-israel (sic) Messaging.”
In response to a question whether Jon Voight has been offered to work as a spokesperson for Israel, Siri Garber, a public relations executive who represents the actor, explained in an email that she was unaware of any offer.
“Not that I know of but it’s about time they start trying to combat the Pro Pali prooganda (sic) machine. They should choose some w[h]o are a[pp]ealing (sic) to the Gen Alphas and Millenials etc as that is where all the misinformation lies,” wrote Garber in the email. In response to a follow-up question about whether Voight would consider such a request, Garber responded “No idea.”
Chad Schnitger, who is leading the contract for Show Faith by Works, told RS in an email that as of now, none of the celebrities mentioned in slide deck had been contacted. “This was an early planning document with a variety of options that were discussed but nothing set in stone,” he said.
“We’re very proud of the way the project has grown since these early planning sessions and we’re eager to show it to the world once we get more details and materials in place,” he added.
Schnitger’s firm also proposed a “10/7 Experience” mobile trailer that would tour Christian colleges, churches, and events highlighting the atrocities of October 7, 2023. The trailer will feature a “wall-length mounted TV with updated information, pro-Israel media” and footage of the “IDF explaining the difficulty of fighting bad guys in hostile territory with civilians.”
Show Faith by Work’s goal is to reach some 3.8 million churchgoers. Of those, the firm estimates getting around 5-10% to “agree to our programs or attend our events or sign a pledge card.”
As part of this outreach, Show Faith by Works will be launching targeted pro-Israel ads to churchgoers in what it promised to be the “Largest Geofencing and targeted Christian Digital Campaign ever.” Geofencing uses location-based marketing to send notifications and advertisements. For instance, users that have enabled location services on their phone may see an AT&T ad if they are walking near an AT&T store.
Show Faith by Works pledged to “geofence the actual boundaries of every Major church in California, Arizona, Nevada and Colorado and all Christian Colleges during worship times.” The firm said it will then “Track attendees and continue to target with ads” on behalf of Israel.
All of this is part of a campaign to “combat low American Evangelic Christian approval of the Nation of Israel’ and “counter new and evolving pro-Palestinian messaging as the global narrative shifts.”
A Pew Research poll from July found that 72% of white evangelical Protestants have a favorable opinion of Israel. Some polling has suggested that younger evangelicals have shifted more dramatically, including a Barna Group poll from 2021 — two years before the October 7 attack by Hamas — which found that support for Israel among evangelical Christians aged 18-29 had dropped from 75% to 34%.
The firm’s work is being overseen by Eran Shayovich, Chief of Staff at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Israel who is spearheading “project 545,” a campaign to amplify Israel’s strategic communication and public diplomacy efforts. Shayovich is also the point of contact for Brad Parscale, Trump’s former campaign manager, who is leading efforts to deploy new websites and digital content to train ChatGPT on behalf of Israel.
The FARA contract revealed that Show Faith by Works will also be coordinating its work with an Israeli consulate. While it does not specify which Israeli consulate it is working with, the firm is conducting this outreach in California, Nevada, Arizona, and Colorado, all states that are covered by the Israeli Consulate of Los Angeles.
The firm’s talking points include two sets of messages, one labeled “Pro-Israel” and the other labeled “Anti-Palestinian State.” The bulleted talking points include messaging on how “[P]alestinian and Iranian goals are not land-focused, but genocidal” and how “Palestinians elect Hamas’s leadership.” (Note: The last election in the Gaza Strip was in 2006 and only a fraction of Gaza’s current population ever cast a ballot for Hamas).
Show Faith by Works’ pitch deck also offered to sponsor “Pro-Israel messages on Christian Social Media influencers followed by young Christians.” As part of this work, the firm promises to “counter current Pro-Palestinian propaganda with response videos.” Sponsoring the influencers themselves would likely require the influencers to register under FARA and acknowledge the Israeli sponsorship on their social media posts, according to foreign lobbying experts. A proposed organization chart showed that the social media influencers would also report to the “Specialist Hollywood Purchasing coordinator.”
This aspect of Show Faith’s work is similar to Bridges Partners, a firm that Israel hired last week to coordinate a cohort of 14-18 social media influencers distributing content on behalf of Israel in exchange for around $7,000 per post.
Show Faith by Works, like Bridges Partners and many otherfirms working for the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is channeling its business through Havas Media Network, an international media company working for Israel.
Schnitger, who is being paid $150,000 for the six-month contract, told RS that the firm has made some changes since crafting the initial pitch deck for the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “We think it’s very important that the Christian church is educated about these issues. Everything we do is vetted through teams of Christian pastors. We can’t wait to show it to you in a few months,” he said.
When asked what changes had been made, Schnitger did not respond.
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Top photo credit: President Donald Trump walks out with Steve Witkoff after taking part in bilateral meetings at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City, Tuesday, September 23, 2025. (Official White House Photo by Daniel Torok)
In Deir al-Balah, a mother told me her son now counts the seconds between blasts. Policy, to her, isn’t a debate; it’s whether trucks arrive and the night is quiet. Donald Trump’s 20-point plan promises ceasefire, hostages home, Israeli withdrawal, and reconstruction. It sounds complete. It isn’t.
Without enforceable mechanics, maps, timelines, phased verification, and real local ownership; it risks being a short-lived show, not a durable peace.
On paper, the plan strings together familiar parts: a ceasefire tied to hostage releases, withdrawal linked to disarmament, and a multinational stabilization effort to guard rebuilding. Used well, those tools can buy civilians time to breathe: a tranche-based exchange that releases hostages as pauses begin and expands aid corridors with each verified step; and a properly mandated, regionally backed stabilization presence that keeps fighters away from families, protects convoys, and secures reconstruction sites so hospitals, schools, and water systems can function. Modest instruments, not magic, but correctly sequenced, they save lives.
The design breaks down where hard agreements usually do. First, it effectively treats disarmament as surrender, demanding that an armed actor relinquish leverage before credible political guarantees and security protections exist. Durable settlements don’t start with a leap of faith over a void.
Second, the withdrawal language is vague. If a “pullback” arrives bundled with continuing perimeter control, airspace, crossings, or security carve-outs, residents will experience it as occupation under a new brand. Independent analysis notes the text lacks concrete timelines and operational granularity past the opening phase.
Third, enforcement leans on statements rather than machinery. Without mapped guarantor responsibilities, triggerable penalties, and pre-positioned logistics, promises turn into press releases. Reporting on the Palestinian Authority’s potential role underscores how preconditions and sequencing could stall implementation.
There’s a deeper political absence, too. This deal does not deliver what Palestinians actually hope for: self-determination and a say in their future. After high-profile recognitions of Palestinian statehood, offering a Gaza-only fix that sidelines political rights makes those gestures look symbolic rather than substantive. Having Israeli institutions effectively able to veto consequential steps feels like Oslo all over again: process without power-balancing.
That is how interim arrangements harden into permanent limbo — deference to political will instead of instruments, asymmetric leverage left intact, and verification without consequences. Analyses of the current proposal also point to how leaders can convert hesitation into de facto veto power.
If Trump is serious about peace, Jerusalem and the West Bank must be inside the plan, not promised to some later round. Facts on the ground are moving the other way. The UN Security Council has said settlements lack legal validity and violate international law. The UN humanitarian office has documented widespread settler violence and access restrictions that corrode daily life and any negotiated horizon.
I don’t say this as a spectator. For three decades, and, crucially, from 1994 to 2012, I worked across Israel and the Palestinian territories, running dialogues, designing confidence measures, and trying to push fragile agreements into daily reality. I arrived at Oslo believing its interim architecture could be saved. Hard experience taught me why it often wasn’t: interimism without enforcement calcifies; asymmetry invites spoilers; and externally driven programs that sideline local voices manufacture the very grievances violence feeds on. Those are not laments; they’re operating instructions.
So what would a plan that acts like peace look like? Start with measured, verifiable sequencing. Convert the hostage-for-ceasefire idea into a tranche ladder with objective indicators.
Tranche 0: a 72-hour humanitarian pause and release of the most vulnerable hostages, independently verified.
Tranche 1: further releases and sustained relief corridors.
Tranche 2: armor out of GPS-mapped grid squares; municipal functions transferred to neutral civil administrators.
Tranche 3: localized arms-reduction pilots paired with trained community policing.
Tranche 4: broader demobilization tied to political benchmarks. Publish indicators per tranche, names returned, coordinates vacated, tonnage of aid delivered, verified hand-ins, police trained, on a public dashboard so guarantors act on facts, not spin.
Next, replace applause with commitments on paper. Regional states and major donors should sign a concise guarantor treaty with annexes that spell out who does what when breaches occur: logistics deployed within 48 hours, escrowed funds released or frozen, proportionate sanctions, or a rapid-response element under hybrid command.
Add an escalation ladder, a dispute-resolution clause, and a small guarantor secretariat that tracks readiness daily. Tie money to verification outcomes so incentives are immediate and reversible. Established policy work already frames these sequencing and governance choices—use it to draft the legal plumbing.
Then give monitoring real teeth. Stand up a Verification & Rapid Response Authority (VRRA) with three pillars: a Technical Verification Unit (remote sensing, forensics, chain-of-custody); a Civilian Observers Network (local monitors and NGO liaisons); and a Rapid Response Wing (pre-positioned transport, medevac, engineering). When the VRRA issues an evidence packet—geolocated imagery, metadata, documented hand-ins—it should automatically trigger the agreed guarantor response. Monitoring that cannot cause action is theater; people in Gaza do not have time for theater.
Demobilization must not be coerced by a vacuum. It should be gradual, conditional, and reversible — and paired with a transitional political compact that guarantees participation, association, and a mapped route to representation. Pilot DDR alongside livelihoods, public hiring, micro-grants, reconstruction jobs—and community-led policing reforms so neighborhoods feel safer, not abandoned. Field reporting shows that sequencing PA governance and security responsibilities will make or break feasibility; treat that as a design constraint, not a footnote.
Reconstruction must rebuild institutions, not patronage. Create a Donor Compact & Reconstruction Authority (DCRA) with pooled escrow and a multistakeholder board, Gaza municipalities, West Bank civil society, donors, independent auditors, and a VRRA liaison. Use digitized public procurement, local-first contracting, community sign-off on major projects, and payments contingent on VRRA-verified delivery. Coverage of an Arab-backed multibillion-dollar plan illustrates how donor politics can fragment; a compact like DCRA keeps money honest and visible to the people it is meant to serve.
Finally, coherence or collapse: a Gaza-only fix will not hold. Pair Gaza tranches with West Bank protections, temporary settlement constraints tied to compliance, increased international monitoring at checkpoints, and targeted support for communities under strain, because what happens in one arena cascades into the other.
If negotiators want something immediate and practical to insist on, here it is: redraft the plan into a tranche protocol with mapped withdrawals and a public verification dashboard; sign the guarantor treaty and pre-position logistics and escrow, with an explicit escalation ladder; and stand up the VRRA and DCRA with legal charters, independent boards, and automatic triggers so verification leads to action, not statements.
Gaza’s families don’t need grandeur; they need a night without terror, a clinic with light, a school bell that rings. Recognitions of Palestine should mean voice and agency, not just new communiqués. A plan that looks like peace but acts like control will fail them. Put Jerusalem and the West Bank inside the deal. Build the scaffold, measured tranches, mapped withdrawals, independent verification, accountable reconstruction, and you buy time for politics, dignity for civilians, and a future Palestinians can recognize as their own.
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Top image credit: screen grab via https://www.youtube.com/@RealTime
On Friday, Van Jones joked about kids dying in Gaza.
“If you open your phone, and all you see is dead Gaza baby, dead Gaza baby, dead Gaza baby, Diddy,” Jones said on Bill Maher’s ‘Real Time’ HBO program.
“That’s basically your whole feed,” Jones said.
The audience laughed and applauded.
The CNN host came off as dismissive of these deaths, calling it a “disinformation campaign” on behalf of Iran and Qatar.
The backlash on social media was fierce, where users made clear that the bloodshed in Gaza was very real and not mere “disinformation.”
Progressive pundit Briahna Joy Reid wrote, “Turning ‘dead Gaza baby’ into a punchline is such an evil choice that I'm struggling to even engage with the outrageous lie that we only care about Gazan deaths because of an Iranian social media campaign.”
The Yaqeen Institute’s Omar Suleiman shot back, “Truly disgraceful and vile (Van Jones). I’m sorry dead Gaza babies bother you so much. Maybe tell the people paying you to put lipstick on a genocide to stop killing them.”
The Quincy Institute’s Trita Parsi said Jones’ comments were a blueprint for how pro-Israel elites try to censor “what is actually happening in Gaza: A genocide of children conducted by Israel and defended by plenty of folks in the US, many of them on Israel's payroll.”
NBC News’s Hola Gorani reacted in a post, “I've watched hundreds of hours of Gaza videos in the last 2 years, including content filmed by our brave teams inside the strip, and can confirm that the ‘dead Gaza baby’ images are quite real, not the product of a ‘disinformation campaign’ and that there is nothing funny about them.”
Media critic Sana Saeed might have summed it up best, “The reason Van Jones can get up, use ‘dead Gaza babies’ so crassly, toss in a joke about Diddy mid-sentence, and have an audience erupt in laughter - without hesitation for either context or content - is because of the depth and breadth of dehumanization that’s been permitted toward Palestinians…There is no America in which ‘dead Jewish babies’ could ever be invoked in such a vulgar way on such a platform.”
On Sunday, Jones apologized. Twice. Jones also turned off X replies to his apology.
This did not stop people from replying.
Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen perhaps best summarized how many received Jones apology, “I’m glad Van Jones apologized for his sick joking about dead kids in Gaza.”
“But the problem goes deeper: he spread Netanyahu propaganda that the mass killings of civilians in Gaza—including 20K+ kids—is Iranian fake news,” the senator added.
“It’s not the students and young people who are fooled. It’s Van Jones,” Van Hollen said.
The senator is right. A recent poll showed a whopping 41 percent of Americans now call the actions of Israel’s government in Gaza a “genocide.” Another poll showed that in December 2023, 69 percent of Americans believed U.S. support for Israel was in their country’s national interest. Last month, that support for Israel had dropped to 47 percent.
The mass killing of Palestinians, including children, is not something millions of Americans and the world are merely imagining due to foreign propaganda campaigns of Van Jones’ imagination. The deaths are real, the internet exists, and people are seeing this carnage in real time thanks to modern technology.
And as humanity demands, they are horrified by it.
It’s that simple. No one is making this up. If I included every negative reaction to Jones in the last 48 hours this column could become a novel.
Jones' comments on Friday night came almost literally at the same moment President Donald Trump hailed on X that “Israel has temporarily stopped the bombing in order to give the Hostage release and Peace Deal a chance to be completed.”
Whether Israel actually implemented a ceasefire or Trump’s plan is viable are separate questions. But that even the president acknowledges the ongoing Israeli war on Gaza is key.
This is no fantasy, Van Jones. It’s certainly no joke.
What’s important, and perhaps the lesson to be learned by this controversy, is that pro-Israel elites simply denying the most massive slaughters of human beings in the Middle East this century is no longer viable.
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