On Monday, Israel’s former prime minister Naftali Bennett took to his X platform to rebuke journalist Tucker Carlson’s claim that Israel and Mossad were complicit in Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking network, using it as a tool for blackmail. Well… Bennett’s unsolicited defence raises more questions than it answers. For example, why did The Times of Israel once report that Ehud Barak, another former Israeli prime minister, visited Epstein up to 30 times between 2013 and 2017? But perhaps that is a topic for another day.
Now, let’s answer what this “Epstein file” is that is once again trending in Western media?
Who Was Epstein?
Born in 1953 to a Jewish family in New York, Jeffrey Epstein began his career as a teacher but was dismissed. He ventured into the financial sector, climbing the ladder of America’s shadowy financier class through investment banking, consulting, and media connections. He also has a stake in a high-tech firm, now known as Carbyne, in Israel.
Epstein eventually became the centre of a vast sex trafficking scandal involving underage girls. A controversial 2008 plea deal in Florida resulted in a lenient 13-month sentence, most of which he served under house arrest. In 2019, he was re-arrested on federal sex trafficking charges, and his private Caribbean Island, infamously dubbed “Pedophile Island”, was identified as a key site of the abuse.
But the Epstein case went far beyond sexual exploitation. He is also reported to have had a bizarre obsession with “improving” the human race through genetic engineering and artificial intelligence. Perhaps not coincidentally, he was a generous donor to academic institutions. Harvard University, for example, received $9.1 million in donations from him between 1998 and 2008.
Despite Harvard’s claim that no donations were accepted after his first conviction, Epstein remained an active presence on campus. Between 2010 and 2018, he reportedly had an office, a keycard, and passcode access to Harvard’s Program for Evolutionary Dynamics.
Epstein was arrested again on July 6, 2019. Just over a month later, on August 10, he was found dead in his jail cell. Though the official ruling was suicide, many believe he was “silenced”, especially given that, to this day, not a single individual has been arrested as a “client” of his infamous island, despite well-documented flight logs that are available online.
Why Is He in the Headlines Again?
Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI declared that they had found no “client list” linked to Epstein and reaffirmed the narrative that he died by suicide. That announcement triggered outrage, mainly because, according to forensic experts, nearly three minutes of the CCTV footage were reportedly altered.
Frustration also grew among Donald Trump’s support base, many of whom believed he would release the so-called client list. Trump himself had hinted at its existence, and his aides had repeatedly suggested they were working on it. But nothing materialised.
After their clash, former Trump ally Elon Musk took to his X page to claim that Donald Trump is also on the list. Given Trump’s well-documented moral lapses and history of association with Epstein, the suggestion did not appear outlandish.
Meanwhile, in an interview with Mehdi Hasan on Al Jazeera’s Head to Head, Trump’s former chief of staff Mick Mulvaney has this to say: “My guess is—and it’s an educated guess—that it’s particularly damning of very important people on both sides of the political aisle. Which is why Trump doesn’t want to release it, and why Biden didn’t release it either.”
Why Does This Matter?
At first glance, the Epstein case might seem like an American scandal with little global relevance. However, in reality, it raises moral and political questions that extend far beyond U.S. borders. If Epstein was indeed running a blackmail ring, then it is plausible that individuals currently shaping global policy might have been compromised.
A deeper investigation could expose similar syndicates operating across the Western world, cloaked in the guise of NGOs and philanthropic organisations, but involved in trafficking and exploitation.
There are historical parallels. In 2007, six French nationals were arrested in Chad and charged with child kidnapping after attempting to smuggle 103 children out of the country. In the aftermath of Turkey’s 2023 earthquake, dozens of children remain missing. Are these unrelated tragedies—or do they hint at a broader, more sinister network of exploitation?
Some have even begun to describe Epstein’s crimes not merely as sexual abuse, but as part of a generational experiment, an attempt to manipulate and control humanity under the guise of science, philanthropy, or power.
Whatever the case, the Epstein file is not just about one man’s crimes. It’s about what his story reveals about the hidden intersections of wealth, influence, and impunity, and who might be protected in the process.
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