After years spent documenting state terror, I know it when I see it. And I see it now in the US and Israel
It’s chilling to watch as Trump and Netanyahu adopt the methods of regimes their countries once condemned. (...)
After decades of documenting state terror, I know how it starts. Governments begin to use words like security, order, deterrence. (...)
What happens when democratic states adopt the methods of the regimes they once condemned? Terror is not only masked men and arbitrary detention. It also operates through fear. Policies are designed to make people more compliant, more submissive. As the historian Timothy Snyder warned in his 2017 book, On Tyranny, this is how societies slide into danger: people obey in advance. (...)
Officers arrest an anti-ICE protester in Minneapolis Minnesota, 30 January 2026. Photograph: Craig Lassig/UPI/Shutterstock.
Tags: #english #us #united states #ice #trump #israel #netanhayu #autocracy #arbitrary detention #secret policing #sureveillance #militarised policing #state terror