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A controversial plan to hand an Israeli data firm with deep links to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu access to the personal data of millions of French viewers has been abruptly cancelled, after an independent French investigative outlet exposed the deal just ahead of the country’s 2027 national elections.

The deal, first uncovered by French outlet Mediapart, would have given Terrific – a 2019-founded marketing and audience measurement firm co-owned by a close Netanyahu ally – the contract to collect audience viewership data for *L’Heure de Vérité*, the flagship political program on France 2, one of France Televisions’ primary channels. France Televisions is France’s largest public broadcasting group, holding a 29.4% share of all domestic TV viewership as of its 2025 annual results, making the scope of potential data access enormous.

Multiple internal sources told Mediapart that senior management at France Televisions pushed the Terrific contract through despite repeated early warnings from staff about the national security risks of handing sensitive audience data to a foreign firm closely aligned with the Israeli prime minister, ahead of France’s 2027 presidential and legislative elections. Staff warnings were repeatedly dismissed, with Mediapart quoting internal responses as saying: “Management wants to see this project through, we have to go ahead, it comes from higher up.” The contract was only scrapped after Mediapart notified France Televisions that it planned to publish its full investigation into the arrangement.

Terrific positions itself as a global audience analytics firm, listing public partnerships with major tech giants including Google, TikTok, Meta and LinkedIn on its official website. Public corporate records show the firm was founded by Israel Grintz, who also leads NEAIG, an Israeli startup focused exclusively on political campaign marketing. Its co-shareholder is Natan Eshel, who served as Netanyahu’s chief of staff from 2010 to 2012 and remains a close personal and political adviser to both Netanyahu and his wife Sara to this day.

Mediapart’s investigation confirms that France Televisions planned to deploy Terrific’s data aggregation tool across political programming throughout the 2027 presidential campaign. The firm’s methodology combines user data pulled from tracking tools embedded in apps it develops with partner clients, allowing it to map individual users’ political leanings and enable highly targeted, personalized political advertising to specific voter segments. This capability left French media and security staff alarmed that the data could be weaponized by a foreign government to interfere in France’s upcoming democratic elections.

This is not the first time an Israeli private firm has been linked to election interference in France. Earlier in 2025, French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez announced that legal action would be taken after it was revealed that Israeli company BlackCore ran a coordinated disinformation campaign targeting left-leaning candidates during France’s March municipal elections. Testifying before the French parliament, Anne-Sophie Dhiver, deputy head of Viginum – France’s national agency tasked with countering foreign digital interference and disinformation – confirmed the attack targeted French candidates who publicly opposed Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and its apartheid system in the occupied West Bank. Dhiver added that investigators have not yet been able to confirm who funded the disinformation operation.

In recent years, the Israeli government has also deepened its political alignment with France’s far-right National Rally party, which currently holds a lead in national opinion polls ahead of the 2027 elections, adding an additional layer of political concern around the proposed data deal.

Original reporting for this story was published by Middle East Eye, an independent outlet focused on coverage of the Middle East and North Africa region.

On the day of his inauguration for a second five-year term as Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Abiy Ahmed has once again publicly committed to securing a permanent outlet to the Red Sea for his landlocked nation – a strategic goal that is already deepening rifts with neighboring countries, even as renewed fighting in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region raises risks of wider regional conflict.

Abiy’s remarks came shortly after Ethiopian government-aligned forces retook Mekele, the capital of the Tigray region, following a fresh offensive launched by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front-led opposition alliance. “Based on the principle of give and take, we will work diligently to ensure that Ethiopia has an outlet to the sea,” Abiy stated during Monday’s swearing-in ceremony.

Ethiopia has been cut off from direct Red Sea access since 1993, when Eritrea gained independence from Ethiopia and inherited control of the strategic port of Assab, leaving the East African nation landlocked. For three decades, Ethiopia has relied almost exclusively on the neighboring port of Djibouti for the vast majority of its maritime trade, but it has actively pursued alternative access routes to reduce its economic and geopolitical dependence on a single entry point.

Earlier this year, a former senior Ethiopian government adviser disclosed to Middle East Eye that the United Arab Emirates, a key ally of Addis Ababa, holds major influence over Eritrea and any potential Ethiopian plans to retake Assab by force. In January 2024, Addis Ababa struck a controversial memorandum of understanding with Somaliland, a breakaway region of Somalia that is backed by both the UAE and Israel, gaining tentative access to coastal territory along the Red Sea and the right to potentially establish a naval presence there. The deal was immediately condemned by Somalia’s federal government as a violation of its national sovereignty, though diplomatic tensions between the two capitals have softened in recent weeks. In a social media post congratulating Abiy on his re-election, Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud signaled openness to a negotiated solution, stating that Somalia does not oppose Ethiopia gaining sea access through Somali territory, adding “I look forward to working closely together to strengthen Somalia-Ethiopia relations & advance peace, stability & shared prosperity for our peoples & the Horn of Africa.”

Other regional neighbors have taken a far firmer stance against Ethiopia’s territorial and strategic ambitions. Just one day before Abiy’s inauguration, the leaders of Egypt, Eritrea, Sudan and Somalia gathered in New Alamein, Egypt, to issue a joint pushback against Addis Ababa’s plans. The joint declaration released after the summit affirmed the “principle of freedom of navigation” while stressing that “the governance of the Red Sea is the exclusive responsibility of the littoral states.” The gathering also addressed long-running tensions over the Nile River, calling for respect for international water governance frameworks and rejecting unilateral infrastructure projects that would alter existing water access for Egypt and Sudan, a clear reference to Ethiopia’s Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on the Blue Nile.

Bilateral relations between Ethiopia and Eritrea have collapsed entirely in recent days: Eritrea cut all diplomatic ties with Ethiopia last week after Addis Ababa ordered the closure of Eritrea’s embassy in Asmara and expelled 10 Eritrean diplomatic staff. Eritrea already controls the entire coastline that once belonged to Ethiopia, making it the primary neighbor in the crosshairs of Addis Ababa’s Red Sea ambitions. Meanwhile, reporting from Middle East Eye in April revealed that an Ethiopian military base has been used to support the UAE-aligned Rapid Support Forces in Sudan’s ongoing civil war, adding another layer of complexity to regional alliances.

While Addis Ababa frames its push for Red Sea access as a non-negotiable requirement for national economic security and geopolitical sovereignty, coastal neighboring states have uniformly asserted their exclusive jurisdiction over their territorial waters and coastlines. The renewed hostilities in Tigray have compounded these existing frictions, with the African Union calling for immediate de-escalation and dialogue, warning that the conflict could spiral into a broader regional confrontation if parties do not pursue a peaceful negotiated settlement.

A fresh political firestorm has erupted in Israel over an award-winning documentary that exposes Israel’s artificial intelligence-fueled campaign of mass civilian casualties in Gaza, after far-right Culture Minister Miki Zohar formally requested the country’s internal security service Shin Bet launch a full investigation into one of the film’s creators over unproven allegations of ties to the militant group Hamas.

Far-right Israeli outlet Channel 14 first broke the news of Zohar’s request on Monday, confirming that the minister had submitted an official letter to Shin Bet chief David Zini, a fellow far-right appointee. Along with the formal request, Zohar attached open-source research compiled by the Yesha Council, a powerful advocacy group representing Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, which outlines what the group claims are suspicious connections linking filmmaker and journalist Yuval Abraham, one of the lead directors of the documentary *NAZA*, to individuals with alleged Hamas affiliations.

In the letter, Zohar argued that the findings compiled by the settler organization are serious enough to warrant a deep, exhaustive review of Abraham’s professional and personal conduct. He wrote, “I hope the data and sources collected and provided by the Yesha Council will assist you and make it easier for professional bodies to examine these matters and deepen the inquiry I have requested.”

This request is not Zohar’s first attack on the *NAZA* team: last month, he first called for an official probe into how Abraham and the film’s co-creator Rachel Szor obtained access to sensitive Israeli military information for the project. The documentary itself features on-the-record testimony from 24 anonymous current and former Israeli military and intelligence insiders, who detail how AI systems underpin Israel’s targeting and bombing operations in Gaza that have killed more than 40,000 Palestinians to date, most of them women and children.

The controversy erupted immediately after *NAZA* took home the Special Jury Prize at the 83rd Venice International Film Festival last month, sparking widespread condemnation and harassment of the film’s creators from across Israel’s right-wing political establishment, far-right media outlets, social media users, and street protesters. In one alarming incident last month, hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside the childhood home of Szor’s parents, calling for both Abraham and Szor to be publicly hanged for what they label as treason.

Following the win, both Zohar and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went public with demands to revoke Abraham’s and Szor’s Israeli citizenship. Shortly after, Israeli army chief Eyal Zamir ordered military legal officials to pursue formal legal action against the documentary’s creators and the anonymous soldiers who agreed to testify for the film. Last week, as the film racked up more than €1.1 million in ticket sales during its theatrical run in Italy, the Israeli military released an official statement dismissing the work as “a distorted, misleading and disingenuous picture” of its operations in Gaza.

According to Channel 14’s reporting, the Yesha Council’s research focuses on Abraham’s professional connections to two Palestinian public figures: Ahmed Alnaouq, a Gaza-born journalist based in the United Kingdom, and Ayman Gharib, a Palestinian human rights advocate working in the Jordan Valley region of the occupied West Bank. The settler group’s report claims both Alnaouq and Gharib have hidden ties to Hamas, though it has not publicly released verifiable evidence to support this allegation.

Speaking to Channel 14 on Monday, Zohar defended his request, saying he had approached the Shin Bet chief “so that he would immediately examine whether an act of treason, or an act on behalf of a terrorist organisation during wartime, was committed here.” The minister added that he expects the domestic security agency “to carry out a full and comprehensive inquiry, leaving no stone unturned, until the truth is clarified as soon as possible.”

The escalating crackdown on *NAZA* and its creators has drawn quiet concern from free speech advocates, who warn that the Israeli government’s aggressive response to the documentary sets a dangerous precedent for censorship of critical reporting on the country’s military campaign in Gaza, at a time when the war has already become a deeply polarizing issue within Israeli society.

When the final U.S. combat troop crossed the Iraqi border on September 30, 2021, jubilant celebrations erupted across Iraqi cities and even in the barracks of Washington-aligned Iraqi national army units. Local civilian communities and Iran-aligned resistance groups gathered in joint rallies, hailing the moment as a long-awaited milestone of national liberation after decades of foreign occupation. For a fleeting, euphoric moment, few stopped to examine the deeper structural changes and unspoken strategic goals that lay behind America’s military drawdown. The reality, as regional analysts argue, is that this departure marks no end to American influence in Iraq – it is a calculated strategic pivot, shifting from open territorial occupation to a more subtle model of remote containment designed to reshape the balance of power across the Middle East.

The first core objective of this new U.S. strategy is to neutralize the armed resistance groups that form the backbone of the so-called Axis of Resistance operating within Iraq. These factions have long refused to disarm or fully integrate into the U.S.-backed national Iraqi army, arguing that their weapons remain the most reliable deterrent against foreign hegemony in the region. By withdrawing conventional combat forces, Washington deliberately strips these groups of their core ideological justification: if the foreign occupier is no longer physically present, the narrative of resistance to occupation loses its public legitimacy. The U.S. has worked to reframe these factions not as national liberators, but as rogue, unaccountable militias that undermine Iraqi state sovereignty. This narrative shift allows Washington to pressure the Iraqi government to crack down on the groups under the banner of upholding the rule of law and establishing a state monopoly on the use of force, potentially neutralizing their deterrent power without deploying a single American ground troop.

Far more consequential is the second layer of this strategy: preparing the battlefield for a potential large-scale confrontation with Iran. U.S. strategic planners have openly acknowledged the mistakes of the 2003 Iraq invasion, which left a massive power vacuum that Iran quickly filled by building ties with local political and armed factions. Today, Washington’s new calculation recognizes that any future military campaign targeting Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) would likely push IRGC assets into Iraqi territory to regroup, launch guerrilla attacks, and sustain a multi-front war against U.S. interests. By clearing Iraq of armed factions aligned with Tehran, the U.S. closes this “back door” for Iranian power projection, ensuring any future conflict can be contained within Iran’s own borders – eliminating the risk of U.S. forces being dragged back into a costly ground war in Iraq. This is a preventive strategic move, designed to limit American casualties and eliminate multiple-front risks before any open confrontation begins.

These resistance groups also act as Iran’s forward defense line across the Middle East, with a presence spanning Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon that creates a persistent multi-front deterrent to U.S. regime-change efforts against Tehran. By forcing the disarmament of these Iraqi factions, Washington aims to sever a critical pillar of Iran’s asymmetric defense strategy. If the Iraqi groups are disbanded, Iran loses its ability to respond to U.S. pressure far from its own borders, leaving it isolated and far more vulnerable to American efforts to destabilize and overhaul the Iranian political system. Disarming Iraq’s resistance is therefore a non-negotiable prerequisite for any successful campaign to achieve regime change in Tehran.

This deliberate gambit carries enormous risks for regional stability, with two potential outcomes that both threaten long-term peace. If the U.S. succeeds in forcing the disarmament of the resistance factions, Iraq could be left vulnerable to indirect foreign domination by Washington, erasing any meaningful gain from the troop withdrawal. If U.S. pressure fails, the region could fragment into a patchwork of competing armed militias vying for power and influence, creating a permanent state of insecurity and opening the door to renewed civil conflict. Crucially, analysts note this potential for chaos is no unintended accident. For a global superpower seeking to maintain hegemony, a divided, chaotic Middle East is often far easier to manage than a unified, sovereign region capable of challenging American interests.

Public celebrations of American withdrawal are deeply premature, the analysis concludes. The U.S. has not abandoned its goals in the region – it has only repositioned its forces and revised its tactics. What was once direct military occupation is now remote control through political leverage, domination of Iraq’s critical financial and economic infrastructure, and targeted pressure to reshape local power dynamics. The future of Iraq and the entire Middle East now hinges on the fate of the resistance groups: whether they retain their arms and influence, or are dismantled to clear the way for American goals. The withdrawal of U.S. soldiers was only the opening act. The real battle for the future of the Middle East has just begun.

This analysis was contributed by Fateme Jafarbegi, a Tehran-based writer and researcher, and Sajad Ahanger, a Kashmir-based political analyst and poet.