Politics
Feinstein exposes profiteers of slaughter on Gaza and Yemen
On Thursday 5th February, the Canary sat down with Andrew Feinstein to discuss his upcoming book ‘Making a Killing’. He is a former ANC member from South Africa who worked alongside Nelson Mandela and has worked tirelessly alongside others to expose the arms trade and its corruption of politicians around the world.
Working in collaboration with others, Feinstein has united the brutal conflicts in Gaza and Yemen in one body of work, allowing readers to connect the dots between the billionaire-owned military machine and world leaders’ involvement in the mass murder and devastation of the Middle East.
Alnaouq: ‘Who killed my family?’
In the co-author’s own words, we asked Feinstein to share with us the backstory that led them to write this book:
So the book is called Making a Killing, How the West Profits from Slaughter in Gaza and Yemen. Where we got the idea for the book from is that a friend of mine from Gaza called Ahmed Alnaouq lost 21 members of his family in the bombing of a family home in an area of Gaza called Deir al-Balah. And he asked me, who killed my family? Who made the bomb that killed my family? Who made the plane that dropped it on my family home? Who gave them the orders? And who profited from it? And that’s how we’ve gone about the book.
So, the book follows what happened to Ahmed’s family in Gaza. And it follows another family in Yemen, which was a much more drawn-out conflict. So, in Yemen, again, it was someone who we knew of, an extraordinary Yemeni woman called Radia. She started a human rights organization in Yemen, without which we would never have known about the atrocities committed with British and American and other Western weapons by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. And the extraordinary thing about Radia is that she comes from a family where her father was a public intellectual in Yemen.
He wasn’t affiliated politically, and he was hated by everybody because he used to, in the truest sense of the word, speak truth to power, to all power. He was assassinated 14 years ago, so just before the onset of the conflict. And to this day, they have no idea who assassinated him because it could have been so many different groups and people.
To contrast with the story of Gaza, we decided the story of Yemen would be about someone who has not only suffered from the conflict, but who has shown this extraordinary resilience to document the conflict and to demand accountability for the conflict. So, this is what drives both Ahmed and Radia, which is the similarity in the story. And so, the book traces the weaponry that’s been used in both conflicts, through specific incidents. And we then trace back who sold it, who manufactured it, everybody involved, and how much money everybody has made out of it. And the figures are stupefied.
And then we ask in the book: So, who killed these people? And how do we ensure justice for all of the people who have been killed in these conflicts?
And it’s by demanding accountability for all of those who have profited and people profit not just materially but politically as well. Our political leaders convince us that they spend these extortionate amounts of our money on weaponry, that they sell it with massive corruption into these conflicts and that we are the good guys in the conflicts. And the reality is we’re not.
But the politicians present themselves as our protectors and our war heroes and they’re making shed loads of money out of it. And that includes the politicians. People like Tony Blair, who is a war profiteer and was when he was in office. He’s making money now out of war because of decisions he made in government. Keir Starmer will be exactly the same. And all of these people in this kill chain need to be called to account. So that’s really what has motivated the book.
‘Most difficult book I’ve ever tried to write’
We then asked how it felt for Feinstein to write this book, as a Jewish, western man operating in a capitalist society:
I don’t find writing easy generally. But this is the most difficult book I’ve ever tried to write.
Fortunately, I haven’t done it alone. There are five of us who’ve co-authored the book. And so, on the team, people have written different parts of it, and I’ve turned it into one narrative and one style. But in order to do the book, we’ve had to follow the conflicts, we’ve had to examine the weaponry, and we’ve had to trace back where the weaponry comes from. So in that sense, it’s been a horrific thing to do.
And we’ve had to constantly remind ourselves why we’re doing it. Because it’s almost like having to focus on the awfulness that our governments have created and been a part of, and are obviously absolutely complicit in. The anger, and to be honest with you, the hatred that I feel, for our morally and materially corrupt politicians and political process has grown exponentially through the process of writing this book.
Feinstein then explained three things he hopes will be achieved through sharing this book with wider society:
So, I suppose there are three things:
The first is that we want people to read this book. Very few people know anything about the Yemen conflict. We call it the forgotten war. It went on for ten and a half years. And it was like Gaza but spread out. It destroyed millions of people’s lives and continues to. And of course, people tend to have one of two views on Gaza. And we want people to be able to read a totally factual account with a lot of footnotes so that everything they read, they can see how it’s been verified as factual. I hope that some people who have been apologists for the conflict or who haven’t thought it’s a particularly bad thing on the part of our governments perhaps reassess. So that would be the first thing.
The second thing is we want accountability. We want to ensure that out of this book with all the material in it, there are a series of legal cases around the world trying to get justice from the people who have engineered these conflicts and the people who have materially profited from them. They should suffer the consequences of what they’ve done, which is to destroy millions of human lives and there are domestic and international laws that apply, that our governments have run roughshod over. And those laws need to be applied.
The third thing is that the book tries to show that these conflicts are not an aberration of our political system, but are actually a reflection of it, and are absolutely integral to and a central part of our political system. And we want people to understand that our political systems in the so-called West are broken beyond repair and are not fit for purpose and are causing immeasurable suffering across the world so that a tiny elite can profit and benefit. And so, I suppose, and not explicitly but implicitly, It’s a call for fundamental structural and systemic political change in the world.
Feinstein’s advice to those new to advocacy against western brutality
Finally, we asked Feinstein what advice he would offer to someone new to advocacy and unsure where to start in order to act effectively in solidarity:
There isn’t a lot of accessible good stuff written about Yemen, to be honest. But there is, there are a couple of writers who’ve written well on it. There’s a woman who lived in Yemen for 55 years called Helen Lackner, whose work we’ve used a great deal in the book. We’ve spent many, many hours with her. She’s an extraordinary human being. Yemen is one of the most complicated places I’ve ever tried to understand. Everything is in a constant state of flux and fluidity. Allegiances, alliances, it’s just constantly changing. It’s extraordinary. So, her work would be an interesting place to start, but I think more important would be to start on the sort of Western meddling in the Middle East and how destructive that’s been. And there are all sorts of wonderful writers, people like Robert Fisk, who was the independent Middle East correspondent for decades and decades. I would have said Noam Chomsky but I’m not sure that I will just at the moment.
There’s some very good stuff that’s been written about this I would also suggest a film was made at Shadow World Investigations, we wrote this 555-page book with almost 3000 footnotes on the global arms trade. But fortunately, there is a 90-minute film. And I would strongly encourage people to watch that just to get a sense of the systemic nature of the arms trade and how it corrodes our politics while causing destruction across the world.
There is also an extraordinary song by LowKey called ‘Hand on Your Gun’ that says in a song of a few minutes what took us 555 pages. And I would really encourage people to listen to it.
We have done some more accessible stuff. We did a book called ‘Indefensible, Seven Myths that Sustain the Global Arms Trade’, that just deal in a very conversational way with myths like ‘increased defence spending makes us safer’, ‘corruption only happens over there in the arms trade, not here’, all of which is a nonsense. And we then disprove those myths. And you can read it for free on our website at shadowworldinvestigations.org. So that’s probably a good place to start and to get a sense of this industry that’s responsible for 40% of all corruption in the world, that corrupts our politics, that corrupts all sorts of other countries’ politics, and that kills on average, half a million people a year. But the last three years, it’s been far more than that.
And then we do events all over the UK all the time. So to come to our events and engage with us, even those who might not agree with us, who have different views to us. Because we like to be challenged. and we believe that we’ve come to the views that we hold in a very factual, evidence-based way. And I think in the sort of post-truth world that we live in where to be a successful politician, your primary skill has to be to lie constantly and convincingly, it’s really important to engage on the basis of verifiable facts. And that’s what all our work tries to do, and that’s what this book will do. a very factual account of who has profited and how they have profited, and a very factual account of the legal position that they should be answerable for. And I hope that it just raises questions for people about what we should be doing in Britain or the United States or Europe to stop our governments and our countries being involved in the creation of murder and mayhem across the world.
Making a Killing is due to be published in September 2026.
Featured image via the Canary