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Sarah Kendzior “The No World Order”

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Meir Kahane, Netanyahu, Trump, and the war beyond Iran.

 

 
By Sarah Kendzior | March 6, 2026
 

In 1989, terrorist rabbi Meir Kahane made a promise.

“A horrible world war is coming,” Kahane told journalist Robert I. Friedman. “Tens of millions will die. It will be the Apocalypse. God will punish us for forsaking him. But we must have faith. The Messiah will come. There will be a resurrection of the dead: all the things that Jews believed in before they got so damn sophisticated. The amount of suffering we endure will depend upon what we do between now and the end.”

Kahane did not live to see his vision realized. In 1990, the year Friedman published The False Prophet: Rabbi Meir Kahane, From FBI Informant to Knesset Member, the 58-year-old Kahane was shot to death while giving a speech imploring American Jews to move to Israel. The alleged assailant, Egyptian-American El Sayyid Nosair, was acquitted by a jury but sentenced by the judge. In death as in life, the circumstances surrounding Kahane are murky and violent.

Friedman had an eye for figures of the 20th century who would define the 21st. Ten years after The False Prophet, he published Red Mafiya: his investigation of a transnational crime syndicate whose members came from the USSR and spent the 1990s infiltrating governments and corporations worldwide. The head of that syndicate, Semyon Mogilevich, put a contract on Friedman’s life.

Death threats were nothing new for Friedman. He’d been getting them from Israelis ever since he wrote the Kahane biography. Friedman had also angered the FBI by claiming they could have prevented the 1993 World Trade Center attacks and correctly warning, years in advance, that the towers would be attacked again. Wary of institutional constraints, Friedman embraced the freedom of a freelancer. In 2002, Friedman died of cardiac arrest. He was 51.

He never saw the future he worked so hard to stop.

Red Mafiya gained a cult following during Trump’s first term. The book elucidates the structure of Trump’s life and presidency: a merger of organized crime, white-collar crime, and government by criminals who elude, then rewrite, borders and laws. Some blame Russia for the US downfall, some blame Israel, but it was always both — along with American collaborators and assorted global operatives.

Red Mafiya names key villains and locales, including Trump Tower, which functioned as a dormitory for organized crime. Mogilevich became an early investor in Trump Tower after fleeing the USSR by getting an Israeli passport in 1988 from Robert Maxwell, the father of Jeffrey Epstein’s partner, Ghislaine. To say Red Mafiya is timeless is to acknowledge we’ve been frozen in hell for forty years.

The False Prophet, on the other hand, is largely ignored. It is in demand but hard to find: used copies of the out-of-print book sell for over $100. I bought mine before the Kahanists — Kahane’s acolytes — returned to power in Israel.

I’ve been wanting to write about The False Prophet for years. I held back since it scares me more than any other book. If it were only history, I would not be so frightened. But The False Prophet describes current events: the extremism that Kahane espoused, and Friedman documented, now dominates Israel and in turn, the United States.

I was born during the Iranian Revolution. As a result, I’ve spent my entire life listening to US officials call for war with Iran. In Israel, the calls are even louder, drowning out reasonable voices who know such a war would be apocalyptic.

The architects of the Iran War know that too, but do not care. Elderly fanatics — from Netanyahu to Elliott Abrams, an Iran-Contra villain who served in nearly every administration of my life — understand that the time to see their goals reach fruition is running out. Trump is not the architect of the Iran war, only its vehicle.

“This coalition of forces allows us to do what I have yearned to do for 40 years,” Netanyahu said as the war began, thanking “the United States, my friend, US President Donald Trump, and the US military.”

Netanyahu now says openly what he said behind closed doors in 2001: “America is a thing you can move very easily.”

One cannot understand

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Sarah Kendzior Q & A: On to Epstein!

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By Sarah Kendzior | February 26, 2026
 

On to Epstein! This section of the Q & A is for Michael T, Mark S, Rebecca, Patricia, Frances, John K, Bill C, Barbara, Robert, Leslie, Donna, and anyone whose name I’ve missed. I’ve shortened and simplified your overlapping questions. My answers are briefer than my thoughts, so feel free to discuss more in the comments section.

Will the Epstein files bring accountability?

SK: Yes, some — but not necessarily in the US. We’ve seen predators face arrest in other countries. In the US, we’ve seen them resign from jobs. This gives me little hope since MeToo produced more backlash than justice, and many who lost power later regained it. I do think the release has forced politicians and pundits to finally address the massive criminal conspiracy that was in the public domain for two decades. What’s revealing is that they view redacted emails by predators as more credible than consistent statements by victims. There is something very wrong with the way Americans trust criminal elites to be more reliable sources than the people they hurt.

What can we do to help bring justice?

SK: Save documents, curate them, and comment on them thoughtfully and with respect for the victims. The Trump admin has already deleted some documents, is withholding many more, and relies on media to normalize sadism and bury crime in spectacle. Reject that. The breakdown of search engines means we need responsible curation more than ever. This applies not only to Epstein but to ICE or any act of mass abuse. One of the greatest threats we face is the deletion of history. Everyday folks can help preserve it if they organize information together. Nick Bryant and others have been pooling resources on Epstein’s network. I have little faith in our representatives, seeing as they knew about Epstein all along and did nothing, but there is still stigma in being a pedophile protector. Pressure officials for truth and accountability and call them a pedophile protector if they resist.

Will the rest of the files be released?

SK: As I’ve said before, I think they were waiting to release an Epstein trove once: 1) they felt they had consolidated power 2) AI was so ubiquitous that the veracity of the evidence would be questioned. That moment is now. We have seen a lot of emails, though one period of interest — the time around 9/11 — is largely absent. We have not seen much video. I believe the most damaging information is on video. We know Epstein had rooms wired with cameras to film pedophiles assaulting victims. I will not watch that if it comes out. But it may come out, and should that happen, the assaulter will claim it’s fake. This wouldn’t have been a convincing excuse a decade ago, but it will be now due to AI. I’ve wondered if Grok posting child pornography on demand shortly before the Epstein files were released was a trial run for this tactic.

How much was Bill Barr involved?

SK: Probably a lot: he’s been called “The Cover-Up General” since the early 1990s, when he buried Iran-Contra and other crimes as Bush’s AG. Epstein and Maxwell are closely linked to Iran-Contra through a number of vectors, but mainly Maxwell’s family: her father, operative of Israeli espionage Robert Maxwell, and her siblings and their government surveillance tech deals. Barr is the guy you call to bury things.

Barr was likely pulled out of private practice to bury the Epstein evidence for Trump, since emails show increasing worry from Epstein’s cohort when MeToo erupted. Barr became Attorney General in late 2018, right after the Kavanaugh confirmation, when MeToo was at its height. In addition, Bill Barr’s father, Donald Barr, hired Epstein to teach at a private school in the 1970s, which helped facilitate his ties to high finance. Donald Barr also wrote sci-fi fantasies about intergalactic pedophiles. I don’t think it’s a coincidence. (What kind of deranged “coincidence” has all that?!) I cover Barr and Epstein in depth in Hiding in Plain Sight and They Knew.

Epstein worked for the Rothschilds. What’s up with that?

SK: Treat the Rothschild family like you would anyone that is like the Rothschild family: any billionaire, multinational banking family involved in corruption and war for centuries. Their history needs to be meticulously investigated, and that should not be controversial. It does not mean every Rothschild is guilty by default, and illicit activity in the family is not rooted in Judaism. It’s rooted in entrenched power that breeds impunity, much like the British Royals. There are people afraid to examine the Rothschilds for fear of being labeled antisemites, and there are also antisemites hurling baseless accusations. Both approaches are bad and dangerous.

The role of Rothschild family members with ties to Epstein and Maxwell should be examined. Work that the Maxwell and Rothschild families did for foreign states should be scrutinized for overlap. Common ties, like Alan Dershowitz or various banks, should be investigated. It is irresponsible to drop the topic out of fear. But do not lump in all Jewish folks with Epstein and the Rothschilds — and never do it in my newsletter in the centennial year of Mel Brooks! That’s no different than lumping in all Muslims with Al Qaeda or Catholics with predator priests. Or all Americans with Trump! Keep digging, but don’t smack bystanders with your shovel on the way down.

What’s up with Zorro Ranch? And his UK bank statements? And other stuff?

SK: I’m a big picture person: I can only see the forest for the treason. Details are best examined by people living near where the crimes took place, who know the land and institutions. Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez lives in New Mexico and has been tracking ranch activity and recommending local journalists. As for the UK, Carole Cadwalladr knows the Epstein case and might know the answer.

That’s the gist of the Epstein questions! He lurks throughout the rest of the Q & A as he does in real life. But on to other topics:

Sylvia: I have heard you speak about the dangers and terrible influences of AI. Yet I find myself reading the simple comparisons of products that pop up when I look for info on something like how to keep squirrels from eating tulip bulbs. Whatever AI search that comes up has a lot of useful suggestions I can follow up on and products I’ve never heard of, and I can then ask for a comparison list. Can you say anything about AI uses for helping us sort through huge masses of information?

SK: I don’t trust AI for answers on anything. Here is an example of why:

SK: Malachai and Isaac are not my children — they are the main characters of the 1984 horror movie Children of the Corn! Children of the Corn is hilarious; I watch it every Halloween and have talked about it online. As a result, AI says I live in a cornfield with my demon spawn. I’ve decided AI is the real “He Who Walks Behind the Rows”: no one knows why it’s there, but [ . . . ]

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Sarah Kendzior Q & A “A Nation on Thin Ice”

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By Sarah Kendzior | January 23, 2026
 

There are a lot of questions, so you’ve got a nice long Q & A to curl up with in the snowpacalypse! I’m going to publish this before the electricity and my mind give out. As Lonnie Johnson sang in 1938, “My brains is cloudy, my soul is upside-down.” On that note, let’s kick it off with thoughts on sin and Sinners:

Frank G: It seems there has been very little cultural reaction to the US becoming an authoritarian, oligarchic, severely economically stratified nation in the past 10-15 years. Other repressive eras in our nation’s history produced huge cultural responses in music, art, literature and film, but it seems to me we are not really seeing this now. Am I reading the situation correctly and, if so, what do you think is the reason for this? 

SK: Like politicians, entertainment companies have stopped trying to win us over: they instead focus on inserting things we don’t want (like AI) without our permission. The merger of Big Tech with Hollywood is one of the worst things to happen to American pop culture. The rot brought on by AI, algorithms, and “anti-DEI” racism is notable given the creative richness and diversity of the last two decades. The industry that boosted a show like Reservation Dogs just a few years ago is gone.

But cultural responses are still there. People still make art to reflect our time: it’s just a matter of whether their efforts are heard and recognized. I got your question on a rare day: the day Sinners got a record number of Oscar nominations. Sinners — a tale of vampiric white supremacists and Black cultural resistance during Jim Crow — is a commentary on our current era and its historical precedent. In the 1930s, Black music was an act of rebellion. Making Sinners is an act of rebellion now. Singing the blues is bearing witness; juke joints spit at the idea of white corporate control; and Sinners takes on race, crime, law, and other heavy issues in a wildly entertaining way.

In repressive eras, horror is where the unsaid can be said (see The Twilight Zone in the censorship-heavy early 1960s). The two movies that best respond to the political culture of the past ten years are Sinners and Get Out: another Black horror film. These films combine sharp political critique and visceral thrill and do so with vivid, original style. Their impact is one reason the Trump admin and its Hollywood backers deploy their racist “anti-DEI” policies: they’re afraid, and not of the supernatural.

You’re right that the last few years have felt flat and dull. Peak TV ended after decades of shows reflecting on the moral crisis of the US (Sopranos, Breaking Bad, etc.) We’ve been flooded with boring shows about the ultra-rich; this shift started around 2022. The downfall of TV was preceded by the downfall of the music industry: the murder of radio, MTV, and the musical pop monoculture — and with it, the counterculture that had formed in reaction. Like streaming TV, digital music is siloed and repressed by algorithms. Politically conscious songs exist but are hard to find. Americans still long for them: that’s why the “Fast Car” duet in 2024 entranced the nation.

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Zohran won

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The meaning of a facial expression and the making of a new New York

By ANAND GIRIDHARADAS

Anand Giridharadas 
Anand Giridharadas 

Reposting this essay from this week live from Zohran‘s campaign headquarters, where we just learned that he won.

I begin with a confession. On more than one occasion (OK, three), I have finished watching a video of Zohran Mamdani speak and hurried to a mirror to work on my smile. I have no plans to run for office, but the Mamdani grin is so striking, so politically potent, so confounding to his foes, so distinct from the projected affect of many of the New York mayoral candidate’s own allies, so full of sun in the dreariest timeline, that I have wondered about my own. Do I smile enough? Do I ever smile? Was my grandmother right that I look angry in my book jacket photos? Am I angry? Why am I so angry? What kind of life could I have had if I could smile like that guy? And in the mirror I try it, and what my brief study has found is that a smile so broad physically hurts. It doesn’t seem to hurt Mamdani, though. It may be why he wins.

Before you say that’s ridiculous, let me explain. With a smile. Ow.

To be clear, the heart of the campaign was always substance. A million New Yorkers could probably name his key policy ideas: fast and free buses, universal childcare, and a sweeping rent freeze. His opponents have struggled to offer much more than fearmongering about his substance. Mamdani is running as a Democrat who wants to do very specific and understandable things to make life more affordable, and therefore uncork the dreaming and creation that can spill forth when life becomes more than a struggle merely to sustain itself — at a time when, nationally, Democrats are struggling to figure out who they are and how to be more than just Not Trump.

As a result, I kept noticing Mamdani’s smile and minimizing it to myself as any kind of important theme. Because, naturally, it’s about the policies; it’s about the big ideas; and it is. But the question is how he has been able to turn the “capitalist capital of the world” into “the epicenter of an ascendant and impatient socialist-led rebellion,” as The New York Times recently put it. And how he has been able to rouse 90,000 people to volunteer for his campaign — a staggering figure that translates into the sight of Mamdani canvassers everywhere in New York. And how he has been able to win over enough skeptics to get to this historic precipice.

And into the mix of factors I’d throw the smile.

You know the smile. It is a face-filling, muscle-tensing, high-octane power beam that flares every time Mamdani comes to a podium, every time he is in between sections of a speech, every time he approaches a prospective voter on the street, every time he is filmed dancing in nightclubs in the dead of night, every time he hears someone in the crowd yell “Habibi!” Like every politician’s smile, it is more than a facial expression. It is rhetoric. In his case, it seems to project a mix of things — genuine joy in the process of campaigning itself, confidence and a certain aboveness, accessibility to all comers, refusing to mirror the demeanor of those who traffic in fear of him.

Ronald Reagan’s smile put an aw-shucks, gee-whiz patina on a policy agenda that would wipe smiles off millions of faces. Barack Obama’s smile cast him as cool as a cucumber, a rock star whom you wanted to follow as a fan as much as a citizen (and who would let you down if he turned out to be merely mortal). Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s smile on her thronged Instagram lives is the smile of up-close-and-personal relatability in the social-media age, an insider bringing you on her strange ride.

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