Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, November 14, 2025

11/14 Links Pt2: The year Jews stopped believing in a safe West; British universities have failed Jews; Oxford Union ‘labels Israel greater threat to regional stability’ than Iran

From Ian:

The year Jews stopped believing in a safe West

The risk is no longer theoretical: in late 2024, France’s domestic spy agency warned that Hamas and Hezbollah “sleeper” operatives might seek to strike Jews in Europe to send a message.

The safe West, it turns out, is seen by jihadists. This situation is viewed as just another front in their war, possibly an easier one, because Jews in Paris or Manchester are generally less guarded than those in Jerusalem or Sderot.

This reality has prompted a grim recalibration among Diaspora Jews. Synagogues across Western capitals are fortifying like embassies. Jewish schools conduct active-shooter drills and hire armed guards.

In places like Malmö, Sweden, or Toulouse, France, where Jewish populations have shrunk after repeated attacks, the few remaining families must decide if they, too, will leave.

As one Jewish security expert in London remarked, “We’ve had to accept that what happens in Israel doesn’t stay in Israel. If Hamas had the opportunity, they would carry out similar attacks here as they did on October 7 [in Israel].”

In 2025, Europe’s Jews know that no amount of Western liberal values or policing can entirely shield them from the reach of those who wish them harm.

There is no doubt that the mindset of the Diaspora is changing.

As one Israeli columnist wrote to anxious Jews abroad: “Our grandparents in Europe asked, ‘Will it really get worse?’ and lived to regret the answer. Today, we must ask, ‘What if it gets worse?’ and live accordingly.”

For a growing number of Jews in the West, 2025 was the year that the question could no longer be avoided.

The answers they arrive at will shape the future of Jewish life on both sides of the ocean. Once again, the packed suitcases, whether literal or metaphorical, play a part in shaping that future.

Baroness Ruth Deech: Universities must rein in scourge of hate they left unchecked for so long

The cloak of so-called ‘anti-Zionism’ has led them towards the oldest hatred. So blinded by their detestation of the State of Israel, it is now perfectly unremarkable for students to demand ‘resistance’ – naturally appearing alongside Hamas-associated imagery – as well as the genocidal call for the destruction of Israel. The Prime Minister was absolutely right to recently declare “From the River” as antisemitic but it has had zero impact on the actions of university leaders.

And so, left unchecked by British authorities (from the Government and police through to universities and wider society), the anti-Zionists have radicalised. The disgusting - and utterly unchallenged - utilisation of an ancient Jewish blood libel by Dr Maqusi at UCL this week shows that a new line has been crossed. The speaker's reported decision to matter-of-factly cite the 1840 Damascus Affair and the long-repudiated lie that Jews used the blood of non-Jews for religious rituals is grotesque.

Patently baseless centuries-old anti-Jewish hatred is now being revived and repurposed to brainwash the next generation of leaders. Anyone acquainted with Jewish history will know full well that blood libels such as this have been the source of hundreds of years of violence, persecution, and massacres against Jewish communities across the world. The university authorities are complicit in this terrible danger.

StandWithUs UK has documented dozens of harrowing testimonies from students at universities all around the country. They have empowered Jewish students to proactively stand up against this onslaught and they have movingly retold their stories to parliamentarians and the international media. These are the true anti-racist heroes who deserve our full admiration and support.

The problem is clear and many of the tools to tackle it already exist but much like the obstinate leaders at the BBC, it requires university officials to take note of what is being taught on their campuses, accept responsibility and their own failings, and root out this poisonous ideology.

UCL’s immediate and unequivocal response to this shocking incident is welcome and offers a blueprint which I hope other universities will follow. If they continue to fall short, however, the Office for Students must forcefully act, and university leaders should be summoned to Parliament to account for the shameful discriminatory and menacing environment for Jews that they have allowed to take root.

Soros Bankrolling Anti-Israel Drop Site News

The left-wing philanthropy funded by George Soros, Open Society Foundations, gave $250,000 to establish a Middle East desk at Drop Site News, an anti-Israel news startup that touts itself as a "reader-supported" purveyor of "completely independent" journalism.

Open Society Foundations said the grant, awarded last year, would help "bridge a crucial information gap in independent journalism" in the Middle East, according to its spending database.

Drop Site, founded by veteran left-wing journalists Ryan Grim and Jeremy Scahill in July 2024, has filled that purported gap with a steady stream of anti-Israel coverage of the Israel-Hamas war. Its first major story was a series of interviews that Scahill conducted with Hamas leaders aimed at providing the "public deeper insight into [Hamas's] decision to launch the October 7 attacks in Israel."

"The past nine months of Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza have spurred an unprecedented global awakening to the plight of the Palestinian people," reads the opening line of Scahill's story.

Drop Site has not disclosed funding from the Open Society Foundations, of which Soros’s son Alex took control in 2022. In its fundraising pitches, Drop Site requests donations through Social Security Works Education Fund, an obscure nonprofit that aims to "educate the general public, media, and policy-makers about the benefits of protecting social security benefits." The organization serves as the "fiscal sponsor" for Drop Site, allowing donors to make tax-deductible contributions to the outlet, which does not have tax-exempt status from the IRS.

The Open Society Foundations funneled its contribution to Drop Site through the Social Security Works Education Fund, earmarked "to support establishing a Drop Site News MENA desk to to [sic] bridge a critical information gap in independent journalism."

Drop Site has provided little coverage of Social Security, or any other domestic entitlement programs. Instead, its bread-and-butter has been coverage of the Israel-Hamas war, from a decidedly anti-Israel viewpoint.

11/14 Links Pt1: UN made ‘Rosetta Stone’ for Jew-hatred in 1975; The Future of the U.S.-Israel Defense Alliance; John Spencer: Hamas can be demilitarized. Here's how

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: The Future of the U.S.-Israel Defense Alliance

How soon? Well, Bibi said, he was scheduled to have a meeting that very day about planning for the next five years of Israel’s future and beyond.

Five is less than 10, which is less than 20. Again, Netanyahu is conscious of how all this talk might play with the pro-retrenchment crowd.

Where is all this going? As I wrote last year, the Biden presidency marked a turning point for Israel. Biden himself mostly held the line on military aid, but it was clear that he was the last Democratic president willing to take that level of heat from his own party for defending our alliance with Israel.

The real shock was that the more vulnerable Israel seemed to be, the more intense were the calls to cut off the Jewish state from anything it might need to defend itself now or in the future. In the past, U.S. presidents took the position that Israel cannot be allowed to be put in mortal danger by the two countries’ shared enemies. That would be morally repugnant but also strategically reckless. But now, a loud-enough progressive chorus—a minority in the Democratic Party, but an influential one and a growing one—comes right out and declares Israel’s destruction to be a worthy goal.

This changes the calculus. If, in the future, there is going to be an American administration that won’t let Israel break the glass even in case of emergency, then Israel must be prepared for such a moment well in advance. And a domestic weapons production line does not appear overnight. Israel’s survival has long been ensured by a defense establishment constantly peering over the next horizon, and this appears to be no exception.

Jonathan Tobin: Begin reducing US aid to Israel, not extending it

The ideal ‘America First’ ally
That ought to make it, as Vice President JD Vance pointed out in a 2024 speech, the ideal “America First” ally since it doesn’t want Americans to fight for them and also can contribute to U.S. security interests in a variety of ways. A strong Israel that isn’t so dependent on the United States could enable the Americans to pivot to using more of its resources to deal with the pre-eminent 21st-century threat to their security: China.

There is no scenario in which Israel could be completely cut off from the United States. It’s just too small a country, and for all of the benefits of its First World “Start-Up Nation” economy, it isn’t rich enough to be on its own.

Nor would it be in its interests to do so since having a superpower friend—and there is no possible desirable alternative to the U.S. alliance—is essential to maintaining its security in a world where so many nations and people want to kill Jews and destroy their state. Yet reducing that dependence to the extent that it is possible is vital for maintaining that alliance in the long run.

Netanyahu knows this as well as anyone.

In 1996, during his first term as prime minister, he told a joint session of the U.S. Congress that he wanted to reduce American aid and eliminate the economic element—as opposed to the military portion—of the assistance. To his credit, he was able to do just that.

His next challenge is to reduce the U.S. aid package, rather than to enlarge and extend it.

That goes against every instinct of the Israeli military establishment, which is dependent on all those American arms and ammunition. It’s equally true that the Americans, even the Obama staffers who negotiated the last long-term aid deal, like to keep the Israelis on a short leash. Going back to the first Bush administration in the 1980s, the Americans have been less than enthusiastic about the Israelis manufacturing arms that could also be made in the United States.

If Israel is to remain secure and maintain a healthy relationship with the United States, then this must change in the long term. The United States needs a partner in the Middle East, not a vassal or a protectorate. The more independent the Jewish state can be, the more solid its alliance with America will become.

Danny Danon: Israel's envoy to UN Danny Danon: Israel's alliance with US protects both nations

The US-Israel alliance delivers tangible, measurable benefits to American security. Israeli intelligence has repeatedly provided early warnings that have saved American lives.

One pertinent example was former Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Aqil. He had a $7 million bounty on his head by the US government for playing a key role in the bombings of the US embassy in Beirut in April 1983, which killed 63 people, as well as the attack on the US Marine barracks in October 1983, which killed 241 American personnel.

Last year, Israeli forces eliminated Aqil, who had American blood on his hands, because he was a threat not just to Israel and the United States but to Western civilization.

This is what partnership looks like: a democratic ally doing what must be done when others cannot or will not. It is in America’s direct interest that groups like Hezbollah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad face the kind of consequences that only Israel has the resolve to deliver.

When fringe parts of the American political spectrum – left or right – begin to waver on that basic truth, adversaries notice. The Islamic Republic of Iran notices. Hezbollah notices. So do the forces of extremism and authoritarianism that watch for any sign of Western fragmentation.

When some conservatives dismiss Israel as a burden, or when some progressives tolerate antisemitic rhetoric in their ranks, they are not simply debating policy. They are weakening America’s deterrent posture and emboldening its enemies.

The problem is not just political but cultural. On the Right, some have confused moral clarity with moral indifference, treating alliances as outdated relics rather than as instruments of power. On the Left, outrage has replaced empathy, and solidarity has been warped into tribalism. In both cases, the result is the same: a retreat from responsibility. When America retreats, chaos fills the void.

If this downward spiral is to be reversed, leaders in both parties must act with moral courage and follow in the example of true friends like President Trump. We are eternally grateful for his strong leadership in recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, brokering the historic Abraham Accords, and pushing through a hostage release agreement that has seen all our surviving hostages return home.

Other Republicans should also make clear that antisemitism, whether dressed up as nationalism or nihilism, has no home in their movement. Democrats must confront the radicals in their midst who conflate criticism of Israeli policy with the delegitimization of Israel itself. Neither side can afford to repeat the other’s mistakes. Silence is complicity, and equivocation is surrender.

The United States and Israel share more than intelligence. They share values that are intrinsic to each society: democracy, resilience, and a belief that freedom is worth defending. These principles are under attack from forces that despise both nations equally. To abandon Israel now, or to allow antisemitism to metastasize in American politics, would be to forget the lessons of history at a perilous time.

The stakes are clear. If America truly intends to put itself first, it must remember that strength begins with solidarity. Standing with Israel is not selfless charity. It is strategy. It is the recognition that the enemies of the Jewish state are also enemies of the United States. And it is a reminder that sustained peace is built not on retreat but on the shared strength and resolve of allies who stand together.

The New Backlash Playbook: How Antisemitism Reinvents Itself

Something deeply unnerving is happening beneath the surface of recent antisemitic incidents.

It is not merely the rise in raw expressions of Jew-hatred, nor the shamelessness with which people now voice medieval libels and slurs. What is emerging is a new mechanism of backlash that turns the exposure of antisemitism itself into an accelerant of antisemitism. It is a kind of psychological judo: an ugly act is caught on camera, public anger erupts, and the perpetrator is recast as the supposed victim of Jewish overreaction. The more blatant the antisemitism, the easier it becomes to claim persecution, and the faster the narrative turns on its head.

The model case arrived this week in Mississippi. A former university student, Patrick McClintock, approached Dave Portnoy during a pizza review and hurled antisemitic slurs while tossing coins at him, playing off the "cheap Jew" trope. It was not borderline hate nor was it a coded message. It was classic, unmistakable Jew-hatred.

Yet within twenty-four hours, McClintock had become a minor folk hero in certain corners of the Internet. A crowdfunding campaign quickly raised tens of thousands of dollars in his name, promoted through a narrative so inverted that it reads like satire: Jews, we are told, had “overreacted,” had “summoned the authorities,” had tried to “destroy his life for free speech.” None of this was true. Portnoy explicitly declined to press charges and publicly said he did not want the student punished. But the truth was irrelevant once a story could be built around Jewish oversensitivity and supposed “tyranny.”

The lie served a psychological purpose. It recast the aggressor as a victim and the victim as an oppressor. It provided donors with a cause – not the defense of free speech, but the pleasure of striking back at Jews who were depicted as policing public life.

This pattern is not accidental. Over the past few years, research on media and prejudice has shown that neutral or lightly framed news coverage of antisemitic incidents often has a counter-intuitive effect. Instead of generating sympathy for Jews or revulsion toward bigotry, it can produce a backlash among readers who perceive the outrage as excessive. When a story includes the incident and then notes “angry reactions,” or hints at controversy, people inclined to view Jews as powerful or hypersensitive interpret the anger as proof of the stereotype. Their defensiveness sharpens, not softens. Their prejudices deepen, not weaken. The original act matters less than the narrative that forms around the reaction.

In this case, the police reacted quickly and arrested McClintock for disturbing the peace. The fundraisers claim that he was being persecuted for freedom of speech by the entitled, rich Jews.

What the Portnoy–McClintock affair demonstrates is that bad actors no longer have to wait for journalists to provide that framing. They can create it themselves. A viral clip, a fabricated claim that Jews demanded punishment, a call for donations framed as a stand against censorship, and within hours the incident has been rewritten. The backlash becomes more potent than the original hatred, because it is wrapped in a story about principle and resistance rather than open bigotry.

This is not limited to one side of the political spectrum. On the progressive Left, blatant antisemitism like an open blood libel is still difficult to defend in public. When a guest lecturer at University College London, Dr. Samar Maqusi, revived the nineteenth century Damascus blood libel and presented it to students as plausible history, the response from the institution was swift. UCL ended her affiliation and referred the case to the authorities. Most progressives are not prepared to go on record defending medieval fantasies about Jews murdering Christians for ritual purposes.

But if we look back to October 7, 2023 and its aftermath, we can see that the underlying playbook on parts of the Left is remarkably similar to what we are now watching around McClintock. After the Hamas massacres, a significant segment of progressive activists and commentators insisted that the most documented atrocities did not really happen. They claimed there were no rapes, no deliberate murders of civilians, that the attack was a legitimate act of “resistance,” and that Israel’s subsequent response was an outrageous overreaction. When Jews described this as antisemitic – not because criticism of Israel is forbidden, but because denying or justifying the murder and abuse of Jews has a very old pedigree – many of the same voices responded by saying that antisemitism was being “weaponized” to silence debate.

The argument around the IHRA working definition of antisemitism is another version of this dynamic. The text explicitly states that it is a non-legally binding educational tool, not a law and not intended to criminalize or shut down legitimate political speech. Yet for years, critics have claimed that IHRA is designed to outlaw all criticism of Israel and to censor pro-Palestinian activism. The actual words of the definition, which draw a clear line between normal criticism and antisemitic double standards, are quietly pushed aside. What matters is the narrative that Jews are redefining antisemitism in order to avoid scrutiny and to suppress dissenting views.

Once that frame is in place, the structure is identical for both the Left and the Right. First, minimize or relativize the underlying act: insist that the crime was exaggerated, that the facts are unclear, that what happened on October 7 was just another episode in an ongoing conflict, that a blood libel is just a “controversial interpretation of history,” that shouting slurs at a Jew in public is “one dumb mistake” unworthy of consequences. Second, accuse Jews of overreacting and of trying to relabel a political dispute as bigotry. Third, describe institutional or social pushback as censorship and persecution. At that point, the target audience is no longer thinking about what was done to Jews; they are thinking about what Jews supposedly do to others.

The result is a backlash that is especially powerful for a certain minority of people. These are not the committed neo-Nazis or the most extreme ideologues. They are the ones who already half-believe that Jews are influential and oversensitive, but who also think of themselves as fair-minded. When they are bombarded with stories that combine an antisemitic incident, visible Jewish anger, and a narrative of “weaponized antisemitism,” it confirms their suspicions. They come away less inclined to take future antisemitism seriously, more likely to resent Jews for “crying wolf,” and more open to the very stereotypes that these stories were supposedly exposing.

This is a vector for antisemitism that our society has no real defense against. Traditional methods – public shaming, strong institutional statements, educational campaigns – all feed the mechanism rather than weaken it. Silence is harmful; speaking out is twisted into evidence of Jewish overreach. Institutions that respond appropriately are accused of capitulating to “Jewish pressure.” The more antisemitism rises, the stronger the backlash narrative becomes, because every genuine case becomes raw material for the story that Jews are exaggerating.

That's why we see October 7 denial, why people claim Israeli prisoners of Hamas were treated well and even thanked them, why shouting out in public "Fuck the Jews!" is recategorized as a freedom of speech issue. When the crime is minimized, the reactions can be spun as excessive.

If this logic continues to spread, it will become one of the most effective amplifiers of antisemitism in the digital age: a system in which every act of hatred carries within it the blueprint for its own justification, and in which condemnation becomes the gasoline rather than the extinguisher.

Unless we acknowledge this mechanism and find ways to disrupt it, we will continue to lose ground not because antisemitism is growing more sophisticated, but because it is learning to use our own moral intuitions against us.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

The Philosophical Core of Anti-Zionism Is Antisemitism

We’re told over and over again that anti-Zionism is not antisemitism. It’s just politics, we’re told; it is opposition to one state’s policies, not a judgment about Jews as Jews. In fact, calling it antisemitism is a form of censorship, a way to silence a legitimate political opinion.

On the surface, this claim seems plausible. People criticize countries all the time. Saying “I oppose China’s treatment of Uighurs” doesn’t mean you hate Chinese people. So why should opposing Israel mean you hate Jews?

The strongest rebuttal so far has been that anti-Zionism denies the Jewish right to self-determination. But the anti-Zionists answer that by saying that most Jews don’t live in Israel and are happy citizens of other countries. They don’t need national self-determination. That’s just a Zionist ideology, not a universal Jewish claim, and opposing Israel's existence as a Jewish state is therefore a moral political opinion and Zionism is an illegitimate form of Jewish supremacy.

And there the argument usually ends. One side says Jews deserve a state; the other says Jews have no such right and in fact their desire for a state in the Levant is colonialist. It sounds like a disagreement about values, with two legitimate opinions. And if they are both legitimate opinions, then the anti-Zionist side wins by default, because antisemitism is illegitimate but political opinion isn't. Being anti-Zionist cannot be considered truly antisemitic - perhaps some extremists are, maybe Hamas is, but opposing Israel has nothing to do with Jews as Jews and therefore is fine.

Until you dig deeper.

I’ve been developing a new method of analysis called Derechology. It begins with a basic principle: everyone has a derech — a consistent moral path. Even when someone’s statements or actions seem contradictory, their derech is usually more coherent than it appears. Contradictions only appear that way because we haven’t yet uncovered the deeper assumption that holds their worldview together.

Which brings us to Professor Ramsi Woodcock.

Woodcock is a law professor at the University of Kentucky. In late 2025, he was suspended after publicly calling for every country in the world to make war on Israel — not metaphorically, but literally — until Israel surrendered unconditionally to Palestinian rule over the entire land from the river to the sea.

He defended this position:

He said his calls for military intervention against Israel, and his views that the future of Palestine should be determined by Palestinians alone – including Jews who lived in Palestine before large-scale Jewish immigration began in the late 19th century – are consistent with recognizing Israel as a colonial project. Woodcock, who is part Algerian, often refers to that country’s experience of ending French colonial rule as a basis for his argument.

He supports Palestinian nationalism while condemning Jewish nationalism as illegitimate. In his view, Jews who lived in the land before Zionism could be considered Palestinians and equal citizens, but everyone else - including Holocaust survivors and Jews from Arab countries and their descendants - are foreign colonizers.

At first glance, this seems like hypocrisy. Why is Palestinian nationalism considered noble, but Jewish nationalism a crime? Why does he support decolonization in one case and not the other? Why does he say that Jews whose families arrived 140 years ago should be subject to a referendum by Arabs but Arabs whose ancestors immigrated to Palestine in the early 20th century are fully Palestinian and have the right to stay?

If we assume his derech is internally consistent, there must be a hidden assumption that resolves the contradiction.

That assumption is this: Jews are not a people.

Jews are merely a religious group. They are not a nation, not an indigenous group. Just a religion. They are merely a group of individuals who have no collective claim to history, land, memory, or destiny.

If you believe that, then Zionism isn’t a form of national liberation. It’s a fraud - a manipulation of categories. There is no “Jewish people” in the national sense, so any attempt to behave like one is inherently illegitimate.

That is Ramsi Woodcock's philosophy. If you ask him if there is a Jewish people, he will have to claim there isn't - because he is a professor who has thought deeply about this and has made anti-Zionism the centerpiece of his identity. The very first word on his personal webpage is "Antizionist."

But if you think about it, this is the underlying philosophy behind all of today's anti-Zionism. Arab media denies Jewish peoplehood explicitly, claiming that Jews are really Khazars with no history in the land to begin with; Palestinians routinely claim that all archaeological evidence of a Jewish people in the land is fake and that every Jewish shrine is really Muslim.

The idea that Jews aren't a people is a fundamental, load bearing premise behind anti-Zionist philosophy. The only way people can believe that Jews have no national rights is if they believe there is no Jewish nation to begin with.

Once you accept the anti-Zionist premise that Jews are not a people, a whole new moral framework emerges. Any Jewish effort to act collectively as a people - even outside Israel - becomes suspect. Jewish summer camp becomes indoctrination. Singing “Am Yisrael Chai” becomes a supremacist chant. Prayers that speak of “Your people Israel” become racist. Chanting "Next Year in Jerusalem" at the Passover Seder is colonialist aggression.

This isn’t an accidental side effect of anti-Zionism. It is the logical structure beneath it, and it is the logical result of following its philosophy. You can’t consistently oppose Jewish nationalism while affirming other forms of nationalism - unless you believe Jews are not a people.

Which means that all consistent anti-Zionism is built on the denial of Jewish peoplehood. Woodcock is not an outlier. He is just saying explicitly what anti-Zionists must believe if they are consistent.

And that’s antisemitism.

It isn't mere criticism of a government. Anti-Zionism erases the Jewish right to exist as a collective - as a “we” - not just in Israel but anywhere.

And when that erasure is dressed up as progressive, anti-colonial, or humanitarian, it becomes even harder to detect - and even more important to expose.

Denying Jewish peoplehood is at the very core of anti-Zionism. If Jews are a people, the entire argument against Israel falls apart. And until anti-Zionism emerged, no one in the world denied that Jews are a people. That denial is a recent invention - a retrofitted premise created to justify a political conclusion.

It is easily possible to criticize Israel and not be antisemitic. But it is structurally impossible to be anti-Zionist without being antisemitic.

Once you realize this, the landscape changes. Anti-Zionism isn’t merely entangled with antisemitism. It doesn’t simply echo older tropes.

Anti-Zionism is antisemitic by definition.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

11/13 Links Pt2: Melanie Phillips: The mainstreaming of Jew-hatred Benny Morris: Anti-Israel Demonstrators Don't See Hamas for What It Is; Literal Blood Libels and the Modern University

From Ian:

Dermer: "I Could Not Be More Confident in the Jewish Future"

Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, who served for 8 years as Israel's ambassador to the U.S., resigned from the government on Tuesday after nearly three years in office.

In a letter to Prime Minister Netanyahu, Dermer wrote:
"On the day I was sworn in as a minister, I promised my family I would serve only two years in that position. I extended my tenure twice with their blessing - first to work with you to remove the existential threat posed by Iran's military nuclear capability and second to end the war in Gaza on Israel's terms and bring our hostages home."

"October 7th was indeed the darkest day the Jewish people have known since Israel was established. But the story of our ancient people...has been defined by our perseverance in overcoming the darkness."

"That has been the story of Israel since October 7th. We rejected moral equivocation and fear to confront our enemies with clarity and courage. Two years later, we have dealt a devastating blow to Iran's terror axis."

"One hundred generations of Jews dreamed of living at a time when there would be a sovereign Jewish state. Four generations have had the privilege of realizing that dream."

"With that privilege comes a sacred responsibility: To secure that dream for future generations. I feel eternally blessed to have had the privilege of serving the State of Israel and devoting myself to that sacred responsibility."

"I could not be more confident in the [Jewish] future. Many enemies who reveled in the evil perpetrated on October 7th and vowed to extinguish the flame of Israel have been eliminated, while the light of Israel burns bright across the region and around the world."

Melanie Phillips: The mainstreaming of Jew-hatred

Among the ethno-nationalists, there are also disturbing echoes of the Christian antisemitism that poisoned Europe for centuries. The view that Christian Zionism is a modern heresy is gaining traction among Protestants and Catholics alike, putting into reverse the hitherto ironclad support for Israel by America based upon the reverence for Hebrew scripture among evangelical Christians.

This has all led to a frightening convergence. Left-wingers blame the Jews for capitalism. Right-wingers blame the Jews for liberalism and for denying the divinity of Jesus. Islamists blame the Jews for all the evils of the world. So left, right and Islamists are all now linked to each other by loathing of the Jews.

Alarming as this is in itself, the consequences for politics are likely to be seismic.

America’s Democrats and Britain’s Corbynite hard-left both turn off mainstream voters who reject their extremism. In parallel, if the Republicans are identified with white-nationalist conspiracy theorists, they will also lose great swathes of the public.

However, these extremes of both left and right now have significant and growing traction. In Britain, Corbyn’s hard-left, the ultra-left Greens and the Islamists represent a huge body of feeling that is anti-Israel and anti-West.

Competing with Labour for the same constituency, they will all damage each other. In theory, that would benefit the conservative side of politics. But that grouping is itself divided between the populist insurgency Reform and the Conservative party.

The likely outcome, said the astute political philosopher John Gray in London this week, will be a seven-party split. Reform may emerge as the biggest party in this fragmented chaos, but radical leftists and Islamists will be greatly empowered.

In America, said Gray, after Trump leaves office, the forces of ethno-nationalist radical populism are likely to become even stronger.

At the same time, Mamdani has laid down a blueprint for a merging of radical progressivism and Islamism. That alliance of extremes will damage Democrats and benefit Republicans. But if Republicans are divided between mainstream conservatives and radical populists, they will destroy themselves.

More balefully still, this Zoomer generation—having never been taught the history of the worst that humanity has done to itself—is so profoundly alienated from a liberal democratic culture they believe has badly failed and comprehensively lied about it that they see nothing wrong with authoritarianism and fascism.

The political consensus over reason and morality disintegrated when the left adopted Palestinianism as its cause of causes and turned exterminatory Jew-hatred into a badge of conscience.

That, in turn, lifted the constraints against antisemitism that had previously existed on the right. Antisemitism has exploded on the right because the left gave it permission. In other words, the old guardrails against Jew-hatred have disappeared.

Ideological capture—making impermissible any challenges to the dogma of Palestinianism, identity politics or other “progressive” causes—has turned left-wing views into a hermetically sealed thought system. But on the right, there’s been a parallel retreat from rationality and truth.

Gray says that if politicians continue to fail and thus alienate the public still further, the West could be looking at the rise of real fascism or authoritarianism within a decade.

None of this portends well for the Jews of America and Britain.

The way to respond is to fight like hell: to fight to destroy the progressive ideologies that have hollowed out Western civilization; to fight to turn back the tide of Islamization; and to fight to reconnect Christianity to its Jewish parent by affirming, promoting and celebrating the historic, biblically based identity and culture of America and the West.

Benny Morris: Anti-Israel Demonstrators Don't See Hamas for What It Is

Muslims - whether born in the U.S. or Europe or recently arrived - have been at the forefront of the demonstrations chanting "Death to Israel," "Death to the West," and, occasionally, "Death to the Jews." In many European cities, Muslims feel empowered and, with their growing numbers, are able to cow politicians.

After Hitler's destruction of European Jewry, for a time antisemitism became politically taboo in Western Europe and the U.S. But by the 2020s, the memory and impact of the Holocaust had faded and the Gaza war witnessed a convergence of Western and Muslim antisemitism. Old-style Muslim antisemitism now washed across Europe, persuading ignorant Europeans that their fathers' antisemitism had actually been legitimate.

Anti-Israel sentiment is encouraged by the way the country has constantly been depicted in the Western media. Almost all that the West's largely ignorant young people see and know are images of dead and wounded Arab babies and women - never of jihadi fighters. They know nothing about the Arab terrorism that stalked the Zionist effort to settle in the Jews' ancient patrimony.

They know nothing about the wars Palestinians and Arab states have waged against the Jewish state, nor do they know that the Palestinians consistently rejected the periodic peace offers made by the Zionists/Israel and the international community for a two-state compromise. These young people are probably even unaware of the treaties Israel signed with Egypt and Jordan, to those countries' mutual satisfaction.

Hamas are close cousins of ISIS and though they have had the public relations smarts not to broadcast the slitting of hostages' throats, they have been just as murderous. Hamas kindergartens and schools in Gaza systematically inculcated hatred of Jews and Israel, in line with Hamas's foundational charter of 1988. So the mass slaughter of Israelis by Hamas on 7 October, with its accompanying rapes and beheadings, was prophesied by Hamas documents and ideology long before any blood was actually shed on that day.

Why the keffiyeh-wearing Christian students and professors marching through America's campuses and Europe's capitals don't recognize Hamas's homophobia, misogyny, totalitarianism, and their anti-Christian/anti-Western core beliefs is beyond comprehension. But somehow the demonstrators don't see Hamas for what it is.

11/13 Links Pt1: Body of Meny Godard, 73, returned from Gaza; Erin Molan interviews PM Benjamin Netanyahu; The Cease-Fire and Israeli Sovereignty; In the Israel-Hamas War, International Law Favors the Lawless

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: The Cease-Fire and Israeli Sovereignty

Some of the questions around the U.S. role in the cease-fire seemed designed to pick a fight. It was suggested that perhaps Israel was being put in the role of a “vassal” state. Netanyahu had a good response to this: “One week they say that Israel controls the United States. A week later, they say the United States controls Israel.”

Still, questions persisted. An Israeli official complained to the Times of Israel that at Kiryat Gat, the headquarters of the stabilization team, Israel was playing second fiddle, and that Israeli agencies were relegated to “contractor” roles.

Former Ambassador to the U..S Michael Oren expressed similar concerns. He acknowledged that the Israeli military rarely has full freedom of action and that most wars end when the U.S. tells Israel to stop fighting. Still, Oren wrote, “there is a huge difference between receiving an order to stop fighting and the need to receive approval every time we must act. This is the situation today when there are 200 American soldiers in Kiryat Gat and American drones are flying over Gaza.”

Fortunately, Oren says, President Trump knows Israel needs to be able to respond to Hamas’s violations. I would add that Trump has been careful not to ask Israel to do anything that would grant Hamas a loophole around its obligations under the deal. Also, while some fret over the presence of troops from European (read: unfriendly) countries, for now it appears those countries’ leaders are following Trump’s lead consciously and carefully.

The question, then, is less about Trump and the near future than about the post-Trump future. The U.S. isn’t seeking a forever force in Gaza, but no rebuilding mission takes exactly as long as it is budgeted for. Further, any extension—which is likely—of a peacekeeping force will give it an air of semi-permanence, and it will act accordingly.

Trump has positioned himself as the indispensable man of the Gaza cease-fire. On balance, that is surely preferable to the alternatives. But there’s a clock on his presidency and a competition to succeed him that will ensure the “sovereignty” question remains near the front of Israeli minds.

In the Israel-Hamas War, International Law Favors the Lawless

The rules of war were created for a world that no longer exists. They were designed to regulate conflicts between states - actors with borders, uniforms, and at least a minimal respect for order. The Geneva Conventions assumed reciprocity: that both sides would follow the same moral code, even during armed conflict. But what happens when one side rejects those norms entirely? What happens when the law begins protecting those who operate outside it?

The war between Israel and Hamas exposes that contradiction with brutal clarity. On Oct. 8, 2023, Israel did something unprecedented: it declared a formal state of war - not against another nation, but against a terrorist movement. Hamas is not a resistance movement or a political party, but a death cult that massacres civilians, hides behind them, and celebrates it. Yet in the eyes of international law, Hamas remains entitled to protections it has never earned.

That legal fiction has become the foundation of a moral farce. Hamas livestreams atrocities and then hides in hospitals, knowing that each civilian death it engineers will be tallied against Israel in global opinion and international courts. This isn't war - it's lawfare, the weaponization of humanitarian norms to discredit liberal democracies and shield those who commit war crimes.

The International Criminal Court's decision in 2024 to issue arrest warrants for Israeli leaders alongside Hamas commanders marked the collapse of legal neutrality. To equate a liberal democracy defending its citizens with a jihadist organization dedicated to genocide is not impartial justice - it is ideological jurisprudence.

The law's neutrality, meant to ensure fairness, now serves those who reject fairness altogether. The result is a grotesque inversion: liberal democracies are treated as war criminals for defending themselves, while regimes and militias that glorify mass murder are treated as legitimate political actors.

If international law can no longer distinguish between those who uphold it and those who annihilate it, then it ceases to be law at all. The challenge of our time is to rescue the law from those who would use it to destroy the very civilization that created it. A world where the law protects the lawless is not a world governed by justice - and democracies will not survive long in it.

Khaled Abu Toameh: How Hamas Is Planning to Deceive the Trump Administration

Hamas lied to President Trump when it said it had accepted his plan for ending its war against Israel. It was simply trying to buy time to reassert control over Gaza and prepare for more attacks against Israel. Now it is arguing that it needs to engage in negotiations about the implementation of most parts of the Trump plan.

Since the ceasefire in Gaza went into effect in early October, Hamas officials have repeatedly emphasized that they did not accept all the points mentioned in the Trump plan. According to these officials, Hamas only agreed to the first phase of the Trump plan, which calls for Israel to suspend military operations and release Palestinian prisoners, and for Hamas to return all Israeli hostages, dead and alive, within 72 hours. It has been weeks, and Hamas has not yet fulfilled that phase-one obligation.

What about the part in the Trump plan that talks about the demilitarization of Gaza and the deployment of an "International Stabilization Force" as a "long-term security solution?" Hamas insists that these issues are "up for negotiation" but that it never agreed to demilitarization or the presence of international experts and security forces in Gaza. Hamas official Osama Hamdan affirmed on Nov. 10 that "What we signed was related to the first phase of the plan, the remaining phases are up for negotiations and discussions."

For Hamas, the longer the negotiations continue, the better. Those who are familiar with Hamas's way of handling things know that such negotiations, if and when they start, could last for months or years. Hamas will likely try to drag out negotiations until the Trump administration is replaced by another that Hamas hopes will be less interested in Gaza.

Hamas is not serious about laying down its weapons or relinquishing control over Gaza. For Hamas, the Trump plan is nothing but a temporary ceasefire that would enable it to get back on its feet to rule Gaza again, and resume its Jihad (holy war) to destroy Israel.

Death Penalty For Terrorists Gains 100% Support If Also Applied To 'Influencers' (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook and Substack pages.

Jerusalem, November 13 - The drive to make capital punishment mandatory for anyone convicted of terroristic murder picked up significant advancement today with the discovery that every lawmaker will vote for such a bill, provided that the same capital punishment applies to those who attempt to make a career out of a social media presence, political analysts observed today.

A nascent legislative proposal still in development, born of an Israeli public no longer hesitant to take all necessary deterrence measures in the wake of October 7, calls for anyone found guilty of murder with terrorist motives to be put to death. Pubic opinion has long remained split on the merits and drawbacks of capital punishment; the recent urge in support for it, however unprecedented, still did not reach a level that could guarantee passage of a law mandating the death penalty even for mass murderers - until this week, when pollsters noticed that support for the death penalty reached effective unanimity when the proposal included executing "influencers."

Even legislators traditionally opposed to capital punishment on either political or ideological grounds shifted position. "Our established concern involves the protection of Palestinian lives," explained MK Ayman Odeh. "We naturally fear that the death penalty will be used in discriminatory ways, and fundamentally disagree with the characterization of Palestinian resistance to occupation as 'terrorism.' But if it means getting rid of the scourge that is social media influencers..." he trailed off.

Israel has employed the death penalty exactly once: in 1962, the courts convicted Holocaust engineer Adolf Eichmann and hanged him. While the penalty remains, technically, on the books, and is available as a sentence, judges have never imposed it on any other convict, no matter how heinous their crimes. However, to put to an end the incentive to kidnap Israelis in order to leverage them to free imprisoned terrorists, the new push for capital punishment has found more receptive ears than ever before - and 99.89% of the voting public supports its use against terrorists even at the risk of "becoming like the killers" if it means eliminating influencers, a force far more pernicious to human society than suicide bombers, mass shooters, and rocket attacks.

Chinese and Qatari influence operations responded to the news with a burst of new content aimed at discrediting capital punishment in general, and the Israeli criminal justice system in particular. Al Jazeera ran a segment critical of the proposal and highlighting the problems inherent in administering capital punishment, followed by gleeful reportage of Qatari and Iranian execution of dissidents.

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"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

MIchigan antisemitic hate crimes skyrocketed in 2024 while anti-Muslim crimes plummeted

Michigan has a hate crime dashboard. While most hate crimes are racial, the number of anti-religious hate crimes has been going up dramatically in recent year - and it is all because of the increase in antisemitic hate crimes.

Since COVID, the climb in antisemitic hate crimes has been dramatic. In 2023, there was a spike in anti-Muslim hate crimes as well, but then in 2024 there was a sharp divergence - the anti-Muslim hate crimes went way down while the anti-Jewish ones kept going up.

In 2024, anti-Jewish hate crimes were 60% of all anti-religious hate crimes in Michigan.

Michigan is an interesting case because it has a large Muslim population - about 240,000, double the Jewish population. This means that the average Jew in Michigan is about eight times more likely to be a hate crime victim than the average Muslim.

The types of crimes between the two groups are also quite different.

20 of the 77 anti-Jewish hate crimes were directed at destroying or damaging property - compared to zero of the anti-Muslim hate crimes. And six of the antisemitic crimes were for aggravated/felonious assault, again compared to zero for the anti-Muslim crimes. Meaning that antisemitism in Michigan is much more violent and much more directed to Jews as a group than anti-Muslim crimes.

The bottom line is that Jews in Michigan have to protect themselves - place locks and gates around synagogues, worry about being attacked for visible signs of religion - while Muslims are pretty free to walk around and worship without fear.

The media still pretends that "Islamophobia" and antisemitism are similar. They are not. They are quantitively and qualitatively different, and putting them in the same bucket is minimizing the real problem that Jews in America are increasingly vulnerable to attack.

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"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

You think the Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a fantasy believed only by fringe-right groypers and neo-Nazis? Think again.

The lie that Jews exert secret control over the world is just as much a part of “straight” news reporting—written by journalists who would swear on their careers that they are not antisemitic—as it is among white supremacists. The language is different, the tone is polite, and the accusations are dressed up in professional prose, but the structure of the myth is identical.

The recent “Paramount blacklist” story is a case study.

It began with a long, 3,000-word profile in Variety about David Ellison’s first months at the head of Paramount Global. The article had nothing to do with blacklists, Gaza, or Israel activism. Buried deep in the piece was a single anonymous, unsourced sentence:

And sources say Paramount maintains a list of talent it will not work with because they are deemed to be ‘overtly antisemitic’ as well as ‘xenophobic’ and ‘homophobic.’ Whether the boycott signatories are on that list is unclear.

That’s it. No list, no names, no documents, no connection to Israel, no proof. . No indication that the rumor even had substance. It was a stray aside in a story about merger strategy.

But within 24 hours, the single vague line had mutated into a viral accusation that Ellison—an openly pro-Israel executive—is purging actors who signed the anti-Israel industry letter. Outlets ran breathless summaries claiming or implying that Paramount was targeting “pro-Palestinian” talent, even though Variety said nothing of the sort. Examples:

• World of Reel: “Paramount reportedly blacklisting actors deemed antisemitic”

• Haaretz: “Paramount Studios Reportedly Keeps Blacklist of Antisemitic Industry Figures”

• Consequence: “Paramount Has Blacklist for ‘Bigoted’ Actors”

• ScreenGeek: “Paramount Has Blacklist of Actors Who Are Antisemitic or Homophobic”

• WSWS: “McCarthyite Blacklist Targets Gaza Critics in Hollywood”

Every one of these pieces took the same anonymous whisper and filled in the gaps using imagination, not evidence. And their imagination came straight from the Protocols.

The “list” became Ellison’s list. “Overtly antisemitic” quietly morphed into “anti-Israel.” And the idea that Paramount was targeting pledge signatories floated through headlines as if it had been confirmed.

There is a reason for this. Not one of these reporters bothered to check with Paramount before publishing. Nobody asked a spokesperson. Nobody requested clarification. Nobody demanded evidence. The most basic expectation from journalists - to ask for a comment from the person being accused - never happened.

Why? Because the narrative was too perfect—too aligned with the latent fantasy that “Zionists” secretly control Hollywood—that the rumor was simply too good to check.

By the time Variety added a careful clarification three days later—an update stating that there is no “itemized list” at all, only a general policy of not hiring people who publicly engage in hate—the story had already been cemented across the English-speaking world.

The irony is glaring. Even the original sentence made it clear that Paramount’s alleged red lines were for individuals who are “overtly antisemitic,” “xenophobic,” or “homophobic.” If a liberal, non-Jewish-owned studio had said the exact same thing, no one would have blinked.

Every employer in America avoids hiring people who might become PR disasters by posting slurs or conspiracy theories. Companies cannot always fire someone for off-hours behavior, but they absolutely can decline to hire people who might embarrass them. But that is not how the story was interpreted. Reporters instantly—and without evidence—decided that “overtly antisemitic” was code for “criticizes Israel.”

To reach that conclusion, you have to believe that Jews speak in hidden meanings and dog whistles, that Jewish-owned institutions never say what they really mean, and that any Jewish claim—whether about antisemitism or workplace discrimination—is camouflage for a deeper agenda.

That is not journalism. That is mind-reading.

Worse, it is the exact same framework used to interpret Israel’s actions in Gaza. The “genocide” accusation depends entirely on this mental model. When Israeli leaders make explicit statements about humanitarian corridors, evacuation notices, or efforts to avoid civilian harm, critics insist that the real intention is mass murder. When Israel provides the most sustained humanitarian aid of any warring party in modern history, including food, water, fuel, and medical transfers, the same critics dismiss it as a trick. It is assumed that Israel’s “true” goal can be divined through intuition, even when objective evidence contradicts it.

And that intuition just happens to coincide with a Russian antisemitic hoax.

The “pinkwashing” accusation follows the same structure. When Israel protects LGBTQ minorities, enshrines their rights in law, and features them openly in its cultural life, anti-Israel activists claim that this is deceptive propaganda meant to distract from supposed crimes. In this worldview, the more Israel behaves decently, the more sinister it must be. Jews are lying and scheming -and that is the only way to interpret what they do.

This is not political analysis. This is the Protocols with better graphic design.

The belief that Jews have secret motives, hidden control, and a unique talent for deception is the unspoken scaffolding holding these stories together. It explains why an anonymous sentence about a blacklist of antisemites was immediately reinterpreted as proof of a Zionist purge. It explains why counter-evidence is ignored, why Jewish denials are treated as confirmation, and why any attempt by Jews to define antisemitism is portrayed as a power grab.

The truth is uncomfortable but unavoidable: the logic of the Elders of Zion never disappeared. It migrated from fringe pamphlets into mainstream reporting, NGO narratives, and the rhetoric of national leaders who would recoil at the suggestion that they harbor any prejudice at all.

The Protocols have become the default frame for how to think about Jews in the far Right, progressive Left and much of mainstream media.

The vocabulary has changed. The habits of thought have not.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

11/12 Links Pt2: BDS Cannot Be Negotiated With; The Buchanan Resurrection; The Permission to Hate: Why Antisemitism Feels Good to Its Users; How Wikipedia lies to you

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: BDS Cannot Be Negotiated With

In 1948, Golda Meir famously visited a synagogue in Moscow on the High Holidays, a historic visit by an official of the State of Israel. Meir was the young state’s ambassador to the Soviet Union, which enforced anti-Semitic restrictions without calling them that. The Soviets claimed that a true classless society unburdened by capitalist grotesqueries had no reason for anti-Semitism to even exist. But that didn’t help Russian Jews stuck behind the iron curtain.

Meir and her team went to synagogue for Shabbat services a few weeks before Rosh Hashana, the Jewish new year. There they encountered a hundred or so elderly Jews. Meir’s Rosh Hashana visit weeks later was announced in advance, and when the delegation arrived they found the street in front of the shul “filled with people, packed together like sardines, hundreds and hundreds of them, of all ages, including Red Army officers, soldiers, teenagers and babies carried in their parents’ arms.”

Meir was the symbol of the reborn State of Israel, and the Soviet Jews defiantly flooded the Great Synagogue to call out to her “our Golda!” Meir was so moved she could hardly speak. When services ended, the throng made it impossible for her to walk back to her hotel. She was guided into a cab, but the cab “couldn’t move either because the crowd of cheering, laughing, weeping Jews had engulfed it.”

So what did the secular socialist Golda Meir say to the Jews in the brief moment before her cab whisked her away? Meir writes that she was filled with shame for underestimating the Jewish spark that still burned within these Jews who were held down in a society of fear but refused to be broken. She managed to stammer out one sentence, which she ridicules in her own memoirs but which obviously moved the crowd, in Yiddish:

“Thank you for having remained Jews.”

The event had proved to her that the Jewish spirit was far stronger than the evil empire trying to stamp it out. But the Russian Jews would need that strength: Within months, a vicious crackdown on Jewish organizing began. They would pay a price for revealing their unbrokenness.

The Buchanan Resurrection

Buchanan’s charge against the Jews is among the most obviously mendacious things any Washington, D.C., insider has ever said. And yet what’s most notable about the debate over Buchanan’s claims is the deference shown him. Yes, William F. Buckley Jr., the giant of American conservatism, called him to account: “I find it impossible to defend Pat Buchanan against the charge that what he did and said during the period under examination amounted to anti-Semitism.” But then the writer famous for his concise English prose pulled his punches, wondering what “it was that drove him to say and do it: most probably, an iconoclastic temperament.”

Or, knowing the truth, Buchanan nonetheless lied about Jews to put Jews in a bad light—the signature move of antisemites who, after they’re called out for lying about Jews, complain that they can’t criticize Israel without being called antisemites.

And then the magazine Buckley founded endorsed Buchanan in the 1992 New Hampshire primary race. It was a tactical endorsement, according to the editors of The National Review, designed to nudge the incumbent Bush further to the right. Buchanan drew 37% of the New Hampshire vote and then 36% in Georgia.

Commentary editor Norman Podhoretz wrote at the time:
At first glance these results seem impressive, especially for a political novice challenging the President of the United States within his own party. But on closer examination the early primaries provide a measure not of Buchanan’s strength but of Bush’s weakness. Thus, on the same day that Buchanan’s strenuous campaign in Georgia was being rewarded with a 36-percent vote, he got about 30 percent in Maryland, where he had not campaigned at all. And in South Dakota, where Buchanan was not even on the ballot, the same 30 percent of the Republican vote went to an uncommitted slate.

According to Podhoretz: “What all this suggests is that anyone—or no one—running against Bush would have been assured of that 30 percent. This inference is borne out by the exit polls, which showed that most of the people who voted for Buchanan did so because they wanted to ‘send a message’ of dissatisfaction to Bush, not because they were for Buchanan himself.”

Trump’s two terms in office prove that you can win by advocating for America First policies on trade, immigration, and war—so long as you master your resentments and don’t smear American Jews as disloyal and spin up lies about Israel and drive away evangelicals, the electorate’s most solid conservative base. Trump didn’t inherit Buchanan’s legacy—he is a repudiation of it.

And yet Buchanan clearly influenced MAGA’s antisemitic faction. Antisemitism was his unique selling point, distinguishing him from others who agreed on the general scope of his core issues. A political faction organized around a pathological worldview is destined to attract broken souls, forming a cohort unwaveringly committed to its cause and leader. Thus, Buchanan carved out a small, devoted faction under his absolute control that could be used to shape Republican politics. His 1992 candidacy didn’t in fact move Bush, who eventually lost, to the right—but the crucial point is that Buchanan was endorsed for “tactical” purposes by the same group of conservative intellectuals who debated whether he was an antisemite. And that confirmed to Buchanan the observation Barack Obama later made: In politics, antisemitism can be used as an organizing tool.

The rising Buchananites are betting that antisemitism doesn’t have a ceiling. Their strategy is premised on the idea that in a historical moment when young voters have more than enough reason to distrust the experts, officials, industries, and institutions ostensibly undergirding our peace and prosperity, Jew hate functions something like a magnet that enthralls splintered spirits, further enchanted by conspiracy theories weaponized to amplify despair and leave its audiences wondering what, if anything, they were told about America is true, and if anything about her is good or beautiful. From this perspective, what held Buchanan back wasn’t that antisemitism failed to appeal to the masses, but that he hadn’t built out the infrastructure that would transform America’s political arena wholly.

The Permission to Hate: Why Antisemitism Feels Good to Its Users

With the rise of worldwide antisemitic rhetoric, demonstrations, and actions, it is natural to turn once again to trying to make sense of it all. Explanations usually focus on history, ideology, or geopolitics. This post looks at something more basic: the emotional payoff antisemitism provides to the people who use it. This is a map, not a cure.

The emotional payoff
Antisemitism arrives as permission—the sense that anger at a pre-approved target is not only allowed but righteous. That permission delivers a potent mix:
Relief: diffuse frustrations condense into a single culprit; anxiety quiets.
Moral bravado: cruelty is reframed as courage, “speaking truth to power.”
Belonging: shared targets bind strangers faster than shared ideals.
Clarity and control: a messy world collapses into clean lines—us/them.
Impunity: harm feels like self-defense, not shame.

A rough formula captures it:
Attraction ≈ (Validation × Belonging × Certainty × Impunity) − Accountability.

Lower accountability—in crowds, echo chambers, or with elite winks—and the “delight” intensifies.

Why Jews “fit” the role
The Jewish figure can be cast to suit almost any resentment:
Visible and invisible: imagined as both puppet-masters and infiltrators.
Insider and outsider: neighbors who remain somehow “foreign.”
Powerful and weak: sturdy enough to “deserve it,” weak enough to be safe to hit.
One and many: “the Jews” as a monolith; counterexamples dismissed as exceptions.

These contradictions aren’t true, but they are useful to anyone seeking the pleasures of permissioned hate. They make Jews a multi-purpose scapegoat across eras and ideologies. The validation loop

Antisemitism scales through micro-permissions—a leader’s wink, a pundit’s “just asking questions,” a chant, a meme. Each erodes shame and pays a small dopamine dividend. Social platforms supercharge the loop: clarity beats complexity; heat beats light. Deindividuation lowers brakes; performative zeal raises the thrill. The result is not only belief—it’s arousal dressed as virtue.

11/12 Links Pt1: Former hostages Keith and Aviva Siegel testify before UN Committee Against Torture; Understanding the Strategic Surprise of October 7; Douglas Murray on the Rise of Anti-Westernism and How to Defeat It

From Ian:

Israel and India, Both Under Threat, Solidify Ties

Both Israel and India have pledged to cooperate on future dual-use technologies, including artificial intelligence, quantum computing and robotics, as well as space projects.

India, a Hindu-majority country, is, like Israel, a democracy bordered by authoritarian states. India, like Israel, is exposed daily to internal and external threats, with the neighboring Islamic Republic of Pakistan seeking India's destruction.

Perhaps the most meaningful dimension of this growing alliance, apart from the benefits of the often outstanding education in both nations, is the element of shared values and trust. It is a strengthening alliance, uplifting to watch.

Israel's Important New Allies, and an Old Enemy, Turkey

US President Donald J. Trump announced the latest addition to his remarkable Abraham Accords last week: China's and Russia's neighbor, Kazakhstan.

One hopes that at some point, Azerbaijan, too, might join the Abraham Accords.

Although Azerbaijan has enjoyed close relations with Turkey, relations between Turkey and Israel have now reached an all-time low. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan – after accusing Israel of genocide and crimes against humanity, and issuing arrest warrants for 37 Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu -- reportedly took Trump's assurance of a Turkish role in the future of Gaza, without consulting Israel, as a green light to assemble 2,000 special forces troops to occupy Gaza. What could possibly go wrong?

Erdogan is also trying to buy F-35 jets – to use for what? -- from the US, which always appears delighted to make a sale. If Trump has any interest in peace in the Middle East, this is one sale he must unquestionably turn down.

ITV’s ‘Breaking Ranks’: The IDF Soldier Documentary That Broke From the Truth

For a documentary to do its job and remain neutral on such serious allegations, the contrary evidence must be presented, but throughout the documentary, this was deliberately avoided.

War, especially against a terrorist organization that operates using guerrilla tactics, presents immensely challenging scenarios. In the fog of war, mistakes and errors of judgment can and do happen. But it is also true that the IDF has consistently held its soldiers to the highest of standards, investigating any wrongdoing as it occurs.

It would be naive to suggest that every soldier in the IDF or any other comparable army behaves in an exemplary fashion. In September 2024, The New Yorker published a database of what it said is the “largest known collection of investigations of possible war crimes committed [by the U.S. military] in Iraq and Afghanistan since 9/11—nearly eight hundred incidents in all.”

Some of the alleged crimes include “the case of soldiers raping a fourteen-year-old girl and subsequently murdering her and her family; the alleged killing of a man by a Green Beret who cut off his victim’s ear and kept it; and cruelty toward detainees at Abu Ghraib prison and at the Bagram Air Base detention facility.”

All of this is not to claim that the IDF is necessarily more moral than the American military, although there is certainly a good case to be made. The point is that nobody would condemn the entirety of the U.S. Army as an immoral entity that brings shame to its country despite the behavior of a minority of its troops.

And ultimately, ITV’s documentary relies on a tiny number of Israeli soldiers as “eyewitnesses,” most of whom appear to have a political agenda backed by Breaking the Silence.

Rather than offering an honest insight into the complexities of modern warfare against a terrorist organization, the filmmakers chose a simplified, one-sided narrative of Israel’s supposed aggression. In doing so, ITV’s Breaking Ranks fails the very test it set for itself: to tell the story of the war “through the soldiers who fought it.” Instead, it tells a story already written – one shaped by bias, omission, and a refusal to confront the full truth.

JD Vance Calls Israeli Bid for Sovereignty “Weird” and “Very Stupid” (Judean Rose)

Generally, when dignitaries and officials visit Israel, they make a point of stopping at the Western Wall — the Kotel — and they refrain from invoking Jesus Christ. This is done out of respect for the fact that Israel is the Jewish State, something the United States has always recognized.

Over the years, the Wall stop has become almost a diplomatic ritual: a solemn photo-op that signals respect for Jewish history and friendship with Israel. To skip it is to make a statement.

The Making of a Statement

During his October 2025 visit, Vice President J.D. Vance made just such a statement. The official itinerary, released on October 21, listed a visit to the Wall and a joint press conference with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But that is not what happened.

Instead, Vance went to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre — a Christian pilgrimage site — where he spoke openly about Jesus. “I know that Christians have many titles for Jesus Christ, and one of them is the Prince of Peace,” he told reporters. “And I’d ask all people of faith, in particular my fellow Christians, to pray that the Prince of Peace can continue to work a miracle in this region of the world.”

To many, his words might have sounded well-intentioned — a sincere call for peace. But in the context of the Jewish State, invoking Jesus in public remarks was tone-deaf and inappropriate. In diplomatic language, symbols matter. To skip the Wall and choose a Christian site, to publicly invoke Jesus in the Jewish State, is not a neutral act. One analysis noted that “Vance did not visit the Wall, and went instead to honor and pray at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre” — a move seen as a quiet rebuke to Netanyahu amid friction over Israel’s new sovereignty bill.

The truth is, I’m perfectly fine with Vance visiting a church instead of the Wall — especially since he did visit the Wall on a previous trip to Israel. But it seemed he was hammering home a point, and in doing so, crossed a line. Suggesting that people of faith — which presumably includes Jews — should pray to the “Prince of Peace” is, frankly, offensive to Jews.

He’s welcome to believe in any deity he likes. I only wish he respected our beliefs as much as I respect his right to believe in his. The visit to the church, coupled with a public call for Jews to pray to Jesus, felt off.

The Sovereignty Bill

What truly drove the point home, however, was Vance’s attitude toward Israel’s sovereignty bill. The Knesset had just granted preliminary approval to a measure ending the state of martial law in Judea and Samaria — a step many see as Israel finally asserting sovereignty over its own heartland.

Israel deliberately left the status of these territories vague after capturing them in 1967, hoping to keep the door open for negotiations. But after decades of failed peace processes, terror, and external meddling, many Israelis now believe it’s time to end the ambiguity. Declaring sovereignty, for us, is an act of self-preservation.

The world, after all, keeps declaring that our land is “Palestine.” Yet these are Jewish ancestral territories, won in a defensive war. There is no reason why Israel should not claim them formally as part of the Jewish State.

Vance’s Dismissal

Asked by reporters about the bill, Vance replied:

“That was weird. I was sort of confused by that… When I asked about it, somebody told me that it was a political stunt that had no practical significance. It was purely symbolic… If it was a political stunt, it was a very stupid political stunt, and I personally take some insult to it. The West Bank is not going to be annexed by Israel. The policy of the Trump administration is that the West Bank will not be annexed by Israel. That will continue to be our policy. And if people want to take symbolic votes, they can do that, but we certainly weren’t happy about it.”

If I’d been there, I might have asked him: What’s weird about Jews declaring sovereignty over land that rightfully belongs to them? Why would that confuse a Bible-believing Christian? Surely you know this is land God gave the Jewish people.

To call it “symbolic” is wrong. It was an act of survival. We see the writing on the wall: the world is preparing to carve up our land again and hand it to those who burned, raped, and murdered our people on October 7. Enough. It’s time we took control. It’s our land.

There is nothing “weird” about Jews who love their land enough to protect it.

Bibi’s Balancing Act

Prime Minister Netanyahu had little choice but to downplay the vote, calling it “symbolic” to placate Washington. In spite of Likud’s abstention, the bill still passed its first reading 25–24 — a small but historic majority.

I understand the realpolitik: during a fragile “ceasefire,” the timing looked bad to Vance. And yes, Arab states may have pressed the U.S. to rein Israel in. But Israel’s right to its land should never be a bargaining chip for diplomatic convenience.

What Vance said was shocking. “Very stupid”? “Insulting”? To whom, exactly? To say that a Jewish decision about Jewish land is meaningless or offensive — that is the real insult.

Trump Doubles Down

Trump later backed him up in an interview with Time Magazine:

“It won’t happen because I gave my word to the Arab countries. Israel would lose all of its support from the United States if that happened.”

Which is ironic, because just seven weeks earlier, U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee told Israeli media:

“The United States has never asked Israel not to apply sovereignty in Judea and Samaria. We respect Israel as a sovereign state and will not tell it what to do.”

Unlike Vance, Huckabee refuses to use the propaganda term West Bank. He calls the area by its proper geographical designation: Judea and Samaria. In 2017, he said:

“There is no such thing as a West Bank. It’s Judea and Samaria. There’s no such thing as a settlement. They’re communities. There’s no such thing as an occupation.”

Vance, by contrast, parrots the old Washington line, warning that annexation would “embolden extremists on both sides” and “undermine trust.” Someone should tell him that we cannot annex what is already ours.

Amb. Huckabee seated to the right of Vance

Language and Truth

Words matter. “Annexation” implies we are seizing something foreign. But Judea and Samaria are as integral to Israel as Safed or Jerusalem. The proper term is not annexation, but sovereignty — the right of a nation to rule its own land.

We Jews have waited millennia for this sovereignty. We have bled for it, prayed for it, and reclaimed it piece by piece. No American politician, no matter how high his office or how lofty his faith, has the right to tell us it “won’t happen.”

A Visit Full of Meaning

In the end, Vance’s visit was about symbolism — not just the church or the Wall, but the deeper question of whose faith and whose history command respect. To pray at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre while scolding Jews for wanting sovereignty over Judea is to miss the moral center of this land entirely.

Yet we would never ask Vance to believe as we do, or share our faith. We ask only that he respect our beliefs and rights — and stop presuming to decide what Jews may do in the land that God gave them.

Vance’s visit was full of symbols, and symbols often speak even louder than statements. Skipping the Wall for the church might have been meant as a gesture of faith, but to many of us it felt like a gesture of distance — from Israel, from Jewish history, from understanding what this land means to its people.

Faith, after all, is personal. But our connection to this land is not only a matter of belief — it is the story of our people, written into our prayers, our bones, and our history. That is what Vance failed to grasp: that our faith, our story, and our land are bound together, a holy bond that can never be severed and never surrendered — not even to Donald Trump and his vice president.