Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Saturday, January 17, 2026

01/17 Links: The Board of Peace Isn’t About Gaza — It’s About Replacing the UN; Trump Calls for End to ‘Sick Man’ Khamenei’s Rule; The strange and beautiful love story of the Maori and the Jews

From Ian:

An undercover reporter joined France’s anti-Israel movement. Here’s what she found

If antisemitism has long plagued France, dating back to the Middle Ages, it’s now metastasizing in new, alarming ways, according to a recently published book by French journalist Nora Bussigny.

Titled “Les Nouveaux Antisémites” (“The New Antisemites”), it exposes virulent Jew-hatred endemic to many far-left organizations in France, infiltrated by Bussigny as part of a lengthy undercover investigation. Using a false identity, Bussigny uncovered pervasive antisemitism and anti-Zionism, now a common denominator among diverse groups that often disagree on other matters.

“I saw with my own eyes to what degree Islamists, far-left so-called ‘progressive’ militants and feminist, LGBT and ecological activists are closely linked in their shared hatred of Jews and Israel,” Bussigny told The Times of Israel during a recent interview on Zoom.

“It’s ironic because historically, the extreme left was fragmented. Many radical groups never got along despite dreaming of a convergence of their struggles. Before October 7, [2023,] I was convinced they could only unify around a common hatred of the police and what it symbolizes for them. But I’ve now seen how their hate for Jews, or rather Zionists, to use their term, is more effective in bringing them together in common cause.”

The Hamas-led invasion on October 7, 2023, saw some 1,200 people in southern Israel slaughtered by thousands of marauding terrorists, and 251 abducted as hostages to the Gaza Strip. The massacre touched off the two-year war against Hamas in Gaza and an unprecedented spike in global antisemitism.

“Les Nouveaux Antisémites” — whose subtitle translates in English as “An Investigation by an Infiltrator within the Ranks of the Far Left” — opens with a dedication to Régine Skorka-Jacubert, a Holocaust survivor and member of the French Resistance. Nora Bussigny at the podium of the French Senate as she receives the 2025 Prix Edgar Faure for best political book of the year. (Courtesy Nora Bussigny)

“While writing the book, I was invited to the Mémorial de la Shoah in Paris,” said Bussigny, 30, speaking in French. “As part of its education program, they have a terminal which scans your face and attributes to you someone deported to a Nazi concentration camp. You’re then asked to commit yourself to help preserve the person’s memory and keep their story alive. I told myself I’d dedicate my book to Régine.”

In the book’s introduction, Busssigny explains her incognito endeavor, for which she risked her personal safety.

“During an entire year, I participated, with full discretion, in demonstrations, meetings, online discussions,” she writes. “I investigated university campuses. I applauded next to hysterical crowds glorifying terrorism. I took part in feminist protests and dialogued in municipal facilities with members of an organization [Samidoun] outlawed in many countries for its close, proven links to terrorism. I chanted against ‘genocide’ and for ‘Palestinian resistance’ — obviously armed ‘resistance’ — during demonstrations supposedly defending the rights of women and LGBT people, with no mention of homosexuals being tortured or murdered in the name of Sharia law in the Gaza Strip, governed by Hamas.”

Trump’s Fateful Choice in Iran

To be sure, there are valid strategic reasons for his reluctance. Most U.S. interventions to exact justice on foreign tyrants have ended poorly. No American silver bullet will cleanly depose Tehran’s Islamist leaders and peacefully transition the country to a stable, representative democracy. Since World War II, fewer than a quarter of authoritarian collapses have led to democracy, and those triggered by foreign intervention have been particularly unlikely to do so. Violent revolutions are coercive contests; they are won by those who can organize force, not mobilize hashtags.

That said, U.S. military action can still constructively shape events, even if it can’t control their ultimate outcome. Foreign intervention will not spawn an Iranian Denmark, in other words, but it could prevent the entrenchment of an Iranian North Korea.

In this context, Trump should be clear about his objectives, focusing on three fronts. He should seek to deter the violence against civilians by signaling that the cost of this slaughter will outweigh the benefits of suppression. He should insist on tearing down the digital iron curtain that has allowed the regime to massacre people in the dark (for the past week, connectivity in Iran has hovered at 1 percent). And he should make a goal of fracturing Iran’s security forces by degrading the regime’s command and control, thereby creating doubt within their ranks and emboldening the population.

On the last point, I consulted with three friends in the U.S. military and intelligence communities who have a century of collective experience dealing with Iran. Johnny Gannon, a Persian-speaking veteran of the CIA, advised that any U.S. action should serve to “demoralize, damage, and denigrate” the adversary. He paraphrased Machiavelli’s advice to the Prince about the risk of half measures: “One should either caress a man or crush him. If you injure him, you should do so in such a way that you need not fear his revenge.” If you aim for the supreme leader, you best not miss.

A retired senior U.S. military official who has studied Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps for decades recommended striking the country’s missile capabilities and also aiming for command centers, such that the regime would be unable to coordinate internally and protesters could reemerge without fear. According to another former intelligence official, Trump’s action must convince the IRGC that it has just three options: change voluntarily, be changed by protesters, or be changed by Donald Trump.

The Islamic Republic may have prevailed in this latest battle, but it is destined to lose the war against its own society. The medium-term bet on who will prevail between an 86-year-old dictator and his young society is clear. Khamenei will soon be vanquished by time, and 47 years of the Islamic Republic’s hard power will eventually be defeated by the soft power of a 2,500-year-old nation that wants to reclaim its proud history.

Trump appears relaxed about the fate of Iran. Yet the machinery of war is already in motion: The USS Abraham Lincoln, an aircraft carrier, is reportedly en route to the Middle East. Given their violent history with Trump, Iran’s leaders know they cannot rest easily.

The Silence of the Left on Iran

For the exiles I spoke with, the most disturbing—and telling—thing about the tepid response was the contrast with the impassioned reaction to Gaza. “Why is it that when Palestinians—armed or unarmed—fight for liberation, it is seen as a moral duty to support them, but when Iranians protest, they are labeled ‘armed terrorists’ or ‘agents of Mossad?’” Shams, the feminist scholar, said.

Janet Afary, a religious-studies professor at UC Santa Barbara, helped put this dissonance in context. She described for me a long history that would explain the left’s knee-jerk sympathy for the Islamic Republic, starting with the leftist elements that helped lead the 1979 revolution (alongside the clerics who ended up seizing full control). For those who want to see the end of Israel, the regime’s identity as a defender of Palestinian rights—and a funder of extremist anti-Israel groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah—has given it cachet.

Afary recalled confronting a colleague who was dismissive of the 2022 protests, which were largely driven by feminists; this person wondered why Iranian women can’t just wear hijab like other women in the Middle East. “Are you saying this because you don’t want the government of the Islamic Republic to be overthrown because it supports the Palestinian cause?” Afary asked her. She said yes. “To my face!” Afary said.

The ideological left doesn’t know what to do with violence that doesn’t involve a Western aggressor, according to Kamran Matin, another exile and an international-relations professor at the University of Sussex in England. Matin noted other groups that received only muted support from anti-imperialists, including the Yazidis, persecuted by ISIS, and Rohingya, victims of the Myanmar government—in which case the aggressors were not Western hegemons. If you jump to the barricades against these atrocities, “then the whole edifice of postcolonial anti-imperialism basically collapses. Because for them, it feels like they dilute their case against the West by accepting non-Western cases.”

01/16 Links Pt2: Our duty to British Jews; A Century of Rewarding Palestinian Terror; West Midlands Police chief retires following Maccabi fan ban scandal

From Ian:

Our duty to British Jews

We must be clear about this hatred’s source: a toxic alliance between the nihilistic ‘decolonial’ campus left that views Israel as the embodiment of everything that it despises, and Islamist influence in Muslim communities where anti-Semitic tropes too often go unchallenged. Britain cannot be a successful multifaith democracy if Islamist ideology is not exposed and challenged. Islamic organisations found to be peddling extremism must be shut down. Immigrants who espouse Islamist views must be deported.

Those in civic life, too, must be exposed and challenged when they fail to protect minorities. Bodies such as the National Education Union must be forced to confront open anti-Semitism within their ranks – a culture that normalises bigotry must be rejected with the full force of the law. The NHS is not so short of staff that it must keep employing those guilty of anti-Semitic behaviour. Many doctors found guilty of espousing violent hatred of Jews find themselves suspended, but far fewer are struck off, despite the obvious risk to Jewish patients.

The problem goes right to the top. Keir Starmer pledged to do ‘whatever it takes’ to tackle anti-Semitism following the Heaton Park synagogue attack. Yet he celebrated the release of an Egyptian activist who it later emerged had once said that ‘we need to kill more’ Zionists. Starmer had been un-aware of the comments; for British Jews, it all suggests their security is an afterthought.

Resisting anti-Semitism at home means fighting it abroad. Britain should be doing everything it can to assist Iran’s protestors. The Islamic Republic is the world’s leading sponsor of attacks on Jews – from its support for the so-called ‘Axis of Resistance’ of Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis, to its funding of ‘anti-Zionist’ NGOs and television channels. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps is believed to operate in Britain, surveilling dissidents, intimidating campaigners and even planning kidnappings. Yet No. 10 confirmed this week that it would not proscribe the organisation, which would make it illegal to support the IRGC.

What begins with Jews does not end with them. Countries that become unsafe for Jews – the Spain of the Inquisition, Germany in the 1930s, Russia in the past decade – are those where freedom eventually dies. Never Again is not a platitude, but a promise we must keep for all our sakes.

Lahav Harkov: Fight Harder

Review of 'As a Jew' by Sarah Hurwitz
Hurwitz dedicates a significant portion of her book to defending Zionism and Israel, and she calls her avoidance of the topic in Here All Along a “cop-out.” She blames herself for having wanted to spare the controversy and avoid acknowledging the importance of Israel to today’s Jews and the justice of its existence. But she still makes sure to broadcast that she’s not one of those Zionists. She’s “appalled by Israel’s current right-wing government; sickened by the racism and extremism of its most senior government officials; horrified by radical settler violence…deeply troubled by Israel’s ongoing military occupation…anguished about the war in Gaza with its devastating casualties and destruction.”

This kind of virtue-signaling is not surprising from a former Obama staffer, even one who has immense Jewish pride and who has engaged in serious self-examination on the matter and hopes to encourage other Jews to do the same.

Hurwitz repeatedly refers to her political “side,” facetiously and in scare quotes, when distancing herself from the left because of its weaknesses on anti-Semitism. She admirably takes on some liberal Jewish shibboleths, as when she expresses “a feeling of loss” about how Reform Judaism chose to discard Jewish spirituality. She is correct to question whether those who pursue social justice as the true core of Judaism are implying that their “existence as a Jew is valid because it benefits people other than Jews.”

As a Jew is peppered with reminders, however, that Hurwitz is willing to distance herself from liberal axioms only up to a point. She writes that she doesn’t mean to dwell on Christian anti-Semitism—and one can grant her that it is, historically, very important—but she mentions the Soviet-inspired and Muslim-dominated anti-Semitism of our current discourse only glancingly.

Hurwitz is reminiscent of the talented British-American writer Hadley Freeman, who wrote the book House of Glass, about how her family survived the Holocaust. It could have been a classic, if only she hadn’t larded it with constant references to President Donald Trump being a fascist. In As a Jew, Hurwitz lays her incomplete self-examination bare by essentially blaming rising anti-Semitism in America on Trump.

Hurwitz says that she was first struck by the anti-Semitism of her side of the aisle during the 2021 Israel-Gaza war. But more than once she makes the argument that “this rhetoric from the far left came in the wake of a wave of alarming rhetoric and violence from the far right, particularly during and after the 2016 presidential campaign.” While the spike in online anti-Semitism in 2016 was undeniable, and while there has been an alarming increase in anti-Semitism, or at least a willingness to accept it, by influential right-wing figures in 2025, data unambiguously show that anti-Semitism in the U.S. started to rise sharply in 2014, when the first wave of Black Lives Matter riots began and when Hurwitz was still working for the Obama administration.

As a Jew is well written and thoroughly researched, and worth recommending to the people Bret Stephens called “October 8 Jews”—those who woke up the day after the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust and suddenly realized that a lot of people hate us. It’s really not a book for people who came to that realization long ago and have knowledge of Jewish history beyond a 101 class. Perhaps, in her third volume, Sarah Hurwitz will follow the logic of her own arguments, take account of her own experience at the Federation General Assembly, and go to battle openly with the enemies she refuses to engage with directly in the pages of As a Jew.

A Century of Rewarding Palestinian Terror

Palestinian Arabs have been fighting Jews violently in the Holy Land for more than a hundred years. The strategy has hardly brought them success, but they have retained it, in part because anti-Jewish mayhem brings them political rewards from important foreign actors.

Hamas's Oct. 7 atrocities were innovative - the attackers livestreamed their actions with Go-Pro cameras - but they also fit an old pattern. Hamas said it was defending Jerusalem's al-Aqsa Mosque, and named its attack "al-Aqsa Flood." In the 1929 Hebron massacre in British Mandate Palestine, the Arab rioters, who killed nearly 70 Jews, likewise screamed that they were defending al-Aqsa. Linking the two episodes is the killers' sense that massacres of civilians are politically beneficial.

British officials condemned the rioters in 1929 for pitiless murder, and then tried to mollify them. They failed. The consequences of their appeasement effort remain with us today. In Britain, the 1929 riots energized anti-Zionist forces, who interpreted the inhumanity of the bloodletting as a sign of the vehemence of Arab grievances.

High Commissioner Sir John Chancellor, the British-appointed governor of Palestine, proved far more eager to accommodate than to punish those responsible. He favored radical policy changes to remedy Arab complaints against the Jews and pressed for these changes as necessary to prevent future riots. As a result, the threat of more riots became the mainspring of Palestinian Arab diplomacy and this intimidation campaign succeeded. Colonial Office experts proposed backing away from the Balfour Declaration.

The parallels to the current war in Gaza are obvious. People around the world did express horror at the murders, rapes, mutilations, and kidnappings of men, women, and children by Hamas on Oct. 7. Yet very little time passed before many of these same people argued that the key to preventing future terrorism of this kind is to placate the Zionists' enemies - by recognizing Palestine as a state, endorsing untrue reports of famine in Gaza, and accusing Israel falsely of "genocide."

As in the aftermath of the 1929 riots, rewards for savagery will increase, not decrease, the likelihood of future terrorist violence. This lays a foundation for another century of self-defeating Arab anti-Zionist belligerence. The rewards can be expected to empower the more hateful and oppressive elements in Palestinian Arab politics, making peace with Israel harder to achieve.

The Nazi War Criminal the Arab World Protected

Nazi-occupied Yugoslavia provided a stage for the lethal operations of Mohammed Amin al-Husseini, Jerusalem's Grand Mufti.

Throughout the 1920s and 1930s he had orchestrated anti-Jewish pogroms in the Land of Israel, and during World War II, he managed German propaganda to the Muslim world and developed strategies to mobilize Muslim minorities across the Soviet Union and the Balkans for the Third Reich.

In Yugoslavia he helped raise three Waffen-SS divisions composed entirely of local Muslims from Bosnia and Herzegovina.

These units perpetrated horrific war crimes - massacring Serbs and Jews, incinerating entire villages with their inhabitants still inside, carrying out systematic rape, torture, and pillage.

When the war concluded in 1945, Yugoslavia's liberated government moved to investigate the Mufti's role in Nazi atrocities, formally listing him as a war criminal and petitioning a UN special committee for his extradition.

Al-Husseini's allies throughout the Arab world unleashed tremendous pressure and threats that forced Yugoslav authorities to retreat from extradition demands.

01/16 Links Pt1: Israel cannot heal from war with Hamas while Ran Gvili remains in Gaza; Neither the ayatollah nor the shah; Israel’s quiet gambit on the Red Sea chessboard

From Ian:

JPost Editorial: Israel cannot heal from war with Hamas while Ran Gvili remains in Gaza

Israel is approaching a new phase in the Gaza plan: a technocratic committee, tentative negotiations over disarmament, and renewed international focus on reconstruction.

Yet one unresolved wound keeps cutting through every communiqué and timetable: the fate of one young man whose absence sits at the center of the country’s conscience.

St.-Sgt.-Maj. Ran Gvili, the last hostage held in Gaza, is a son, a soldier, and a human being with a family waiting for him. His return, even for burial, remains unfinished business for a nation built on a promise that those who serve will never be abandoned.

Phase II is being described in diplomatic language as the movement from fighting to governance. In The Jerusalem Post’s coverage of the new phase, US special envoy Steve Witkoff framed it as “moving from ceasefire to demilitarization.”

The words matter, because they signal intent. They also expose a hard truth: A plan that claims to turn a page still cannot close the most basic chapter, bringing home the last hostage.

As the Post’s Seth J. Frantzman has noted in analysis and reporting around the plan, Phase II proceeds while Gvili's remains are still in Gaza, still unrecovered.

Policy architecture matters. Ceasefire terms matter. Demilitarization frameworks matter. Committees and clauses still fail a society when they float above the human cost that created them. Israel’s public can hold complexity and trade-offs in its head. Israelis also understand something simpler: There is no “next stage” in national healing while the last hostage remains in limbo.

Gvili's family has said this plainly, and it deserves to be treated as national guidance, not private grief: “We cannot move to the next phase of the deal while even one hostage remains in Gaza.” That sentence carries more moral weight than a dozen briefings.

For Gvili's family in Meitar, the war’s human ledger will feel balanced only when he is home. His mother’s words captured a widely felt truth: “Without Gvili, our country can’t heal.” Grief does not respond to diplomatic phrasing. Communal cohesion does not form around progress reports. It forms around shared obligations kept.

Gvili's story is deeply Israeli. He was recovering at home, wounded and awaiting treatment, when the October 7 massacre unfolded. He put on his uniform and ran toward danger to protect people in kibbutzim who were not his own. He acted out of responsibility and out of a reflex Israelis know well: You move when others are in danger. His last known actions were in defense of life.

Longest-held Israeli hostages David and Ariel Cunio break their silence

Among the longest-held living Israeli hostages freed from Gaza, brothers David and Ariel Cunio, have begun speaking publicly for the first time since their release, describing their prolonged captivity marked by starvation, abuse and constant fear that escape would cost their loved ones their lives.

The Cunio brothers, kidnapped from their homes during the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre, are giving their first joint interviews as part of an international media tour coordinated by Fuente Latina, a nonprofit news organization that works to bring accurate reporting and firsthand testimonies about Israel, the Middle East and antisemitism to Spanish-language media worldwide.

Ahead of their media appearances, the brothers spoke exclusively with Fuente Latina, which provided their testimonies to JNS.

The Cunio brothers were released from Hamas captivity on Oct.13, 2025, as part of a hostage-release agreement under the Gaza ceasefire plan. After 738 days in captivity, Ariel Cunio said he believed for much of that time that he would never see his brother David again.

“In captivity, every day I planned an escape,” Ariel said. “But I knew that if I got out, I would be lynched in the street. And even if I survived and got home somehow, I feared discovering later that my brother or my girlfriend had been killed because I escaped.”

The brothers, both Argentine-Israeli citizens, were among eight members of the Cunio family abducted during the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, making them the largest single family taken hostage that day.

Ariel described watching his brother Eitan’s home burn as Hamas terrorists attacked their kibbutz. In a family WhatsApp message sent shortly before he was taken, Ariel wrote, “Here begins the nightmare.”

Terrorists entered his safe room, killed his puppy, and abducted him and his girlfriend, Arbel, on a motorcycle. During the journey into Gaza, they fell multiple times, and their captors intervened to prevent a mob celebrating the attack from lynching them.

Ariel said he was held above ground in civilian buildings and observed weapons stored in UNRWA-marked bags and in areas designated as humanitarian zones.

“My captors tried to convince me to convert to Islam,” he said. “They told me it was a pity that I would die and go to hell as a Jew instead of going to paradise as a Muslim.”

White House confirms Gaza Board of Peace members including Turkish, Qatari representatives

The White House announced the members of the new Gaza Board of Peace (BoP) on Friday, which will be responsible for rebuilding the enclave and ensuring the disarmament of Hamas.

The announcement includes a list of members of the BoP, alongside the designation of the commander of the International Stabilization Force (ISF), and the Gaza Executive Board, which includes representatives from Turkey and Qatar.

The statement also detailed that Dr. Ali Sha’ath will be in charge of the technocratic National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), which will "oversee the restoration of core public services, the rebuilding of civil institutions, and the stabilization of daily life in Gaza, while laying the foundation for long-term, self-sustaining governance."

The BoP, with US President Donald Trump assuming the role of chairman, will be composed of seven executive founding members: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio; US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff; Jared Kushner; Sir Tony Blair; Marc Rowan; Ajay Banga; and Robert Gabriel.

The statement also confirmed that former UN Middle East envoy Nickolay Mladenov will have an executive role "on the ground" as the High Representative for Gaza and serve as a link between the BoP and the NCAG administration.

You know how the Israel-hating Left tries to pretend the IHRA working definition of antisemitism is nothing close to what it actually says?

This is a propaganda method where they try to define things in arbitrary ways and repeat it often enough that they become seemingly apparent. Eventually, the lies make it into Wikipedia and AI training data.

We can see this in real time at the World Socialist Web site.

The Australian Government announced that it will establish a Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion in response to the Bondi terrorist attack. So, the Leftist antisemites are furious.

Here's how the site frames it:

In the aftermath of the December 14 Bondi terrorist attack, which claimed 15 lives and injured dozens, the political establishment is cynically exploiting the atrocity to implement a raft of anti-democratic measures.

The offensive is being led by the federal Labor government. Last week, it announced a Royal Commission, which has nothing to do with investigating the circumstances of the attack, but has the character of a witch-hunting body directed against mass opposition to the Israeli genocide in Gaza and Australia’s complicity in it.

The Royal Commission is the spearhead of an authoritarian campaign that is to extend into every area of social and political life. The educational system is a particular target.

Yes, investigating an attack on Jews is being characterized as a way to whitewash Israeli "genocide."

The congruence between antisemitism and anti-Zionism gets clearer every day - from the very words of the "progressive" haters.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

We have said for decades now that the only purpose of Palestinian self-determination has been, from the start, centered on the destruction of Israel and not the actual building of a state.

Shoshanna on X found this incredible telegram from the State Department from 1961:

At Arab League meeting at Shtaura last August, decision was made to establish Palestine “personality” or “entity” with implication of Algerian-type movement designed ultimately to eliminate Israel. While longer range plans include military organization and Palestine government, Arabs apparently plan take steps gradually.

Guns don't get more smoking that this. Here we have documentation that the entire purpose of promoting an Arab "Palestine" - something the Arab world opposed in 1947 - is as a means to destroy Israel.

Not to help "refugees." Not for self determination. Not for statehood. It is all a sham, and has been.

In fact, this decision was made in the previous years' meeting, in March 1959. The Arab League Council at that meeting said it recommended “reorganizing the Palestinian people and bringing it forward as an entity."

This is actually very interesting, because it was at that same Arab League meeting that they passed Resolution 1547, recommending that Arab nations refuse to give Palestinians citizenship in their host countries - keeping them in refugee status forever. Which further proves that the entire purpose of the "right to return" is to destroy Israel - these were two sides of the same coin.

The memo also mentioned that the Arabs were excited that the UN was shaping up to become a place where they would have an automatic majority. "They obviously encouraged by new composition of UN, believing that through mutual back-scratching tactics they can parlay Afro-Asian and Soviet bloc votes into series of votes progressively hostile to Israel."

I challenge anyone to find a single decision of the Palestinian leadership that is incompatible with the desire to destroy Israel. You cannot. It is all a continuation of this decision, and later solidified in 1974 with the PLO "phased plan" to destroy Israel.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

01/15 Links Pt2: Is America still good for the Jews?; When Synagogues Burn; Missing Anne Frank; Rachel Goldberg-Polin publishing memoir on grief-filled journey after son’s abduction

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: Do Jewish Organizations Have the Resources For This Battle?

Indeed that is the main lesson, and it has far-reaching implications. Within the progressive coalition, it seems the expectation is that each crop of candidates will be more vocally anti-Zionist than their predecessors.

Which is why the Jersey City case is so interesting. On the one hand, one is tempted to say that the stakes are low in Jersey City—it has a Jewish population of 6,000 compared to nearly a million in New York City. Nor does it set any sort of national cultural or media tone the way Gotham does.

But on the other hand, that is why it is worrying that the outgoing mayor feels the need to put up these guardrails. BDS’s primary purpose in the U.S. is to foment suspicion and exclusion of Jews. That the DSA and similar progressive organizers are trying to blanket the country’s city councils with anti-Zionist fanatics shows their level of dedication to the spread of anti-Semitism. Your local town’s decision to divest from Israel may have no tangible economic effect, but it isn’t intended to: The point is to spread the social and cultural effects of anti-Semitism.

This doesn’t really have much to do with Israel at all. Jews are the targets, and not just in major U.S. cities or in state governments but everywhere.

All of this has been clarifying. And it means American Jewish organizations must find the resources to join the fight on all fronts.

Stephan Daisley: Is America still good for the Jews?

Just ten or twenty years ago, the U.S. was the most philosemitic nation on Earth with the exception of Israel.

The Constitution guaranteed religious pluralism and the culture was one in which Jews flourished in every conceivable profession and civic field.

Support for Israel was firmly bipartisan. By the dawn of the 21st century, antisemitism had been all but expelled from the mainstream.

A nation founded on liberalism and Protestant ethics is one primed to feel not just sympathy but solidarity with God's chosen people.

Jews found a home in America because it was their God who built the house. The Jews cannot be written out of America's story because their tradition is its co-author.

When Synagogues Burn

You cannot claim to care about antisemitic violence while elevating people who have celebrated those who preach it.

You cannot decry burning synagogues while honoring those who helped paint targets on them.

Because when public figures tell the world that Jewish institutions are “satanic”—or decline to challenge those who do—they are not engaging in provocative rhetoric. They are creating moral permission structures. They are telling unstable, angry, or radicalized people that Jews are evil—and that evil, in their minds, deserves to be destroyed.

That is how an idea becomes an accelerant.

Candace Owens did not light the fire in Jackson. Tamika Mallory did not. Louis Farrakhan did not. But they helped make it thinkable. They helped turn Jews from neighbors into metaphysical villains. And once that transformation occurs, a synagogue is no longer seen as a house of worship—it becomes, in the imagination of a radicalized mind, a legitimate target.

This is what antisemitism looks like in 2026. Not only swastikas and slurs, but influencer-driven demonology: Jews recast as cosmic enemies whose symbols, institutions, and very existence are portrayed as corrupt, satanic, and illegitimate.

So, the question for Mayor Mamdani is not whether he condemns arson after the fact. Almost anyone who is not steeped in antisemitism can do that. The real question is whether he is willing to confront the people who helped build the narrative that made it feel justified.

Because Jews do not need more empty – after the fact – statements of concern.

They need fewer people in positions of power who flirt with, excuse, or elevate those who traffic in the language that turns synagogues into kindling and Jews into targets.

01/15 Links Pt1: Yes, Israel Can Apply Israeli Law to the West Bank; The Promise and Peril of Phase 2 in Gaza; Do Iranian lives matter?; Court Rules: Mahmoud Khalil Can Be Rearrested

From Ian:

Eugene Kontorovich: Yes, Israel Can Apply Israeli Law to the West Bank

Israel’s sovereign rights over all of Judea and Samaria do not dictate the form of governance there. Indeed, since the Oslo process of the early ’90s, Israel has not governed the Palestinians of Judea and Samaria, who are instead misruled by the Palestinian Authority. Israel neither taxes them nor conscripts them; it does not write their schoolbooks or make their welfare policies or clean their streets. Israel’s current interactions with the Palestinian population focus almost entirely on hard security issues. Given that all nations enjoy an inherent right to self-defense, this would be the case whether the Palestinian areas were technically an independent sovereign or not.

President Trump’s 2020 peace plan, recently reaffirmed in his 20-point plan for peace, contemplated Israel extending its civil law to roughly half of Judea and Samaria, where the Jewish population is concentrated, and leaving the other half for a potential Arab state. This helps explain his comments about “annexation of the West Bank.” However, while Trump does not support Israel applying its law to those areas under Palestinian Authority control, that is not inconsistent with the proposals being discussed in the Knesset.

The so-called annexation plans being discussed in Israel are thus not about the incorporation of foreign territory into Israel proper. Rather, they are about ending the anomalous military administration that has applied in this area since 1967. After the Six-Day War, Israel never fully applied its domestic laws to the territory because it always expected the Arab states to sue for peace, and it was always prepared to transfer to them at least some part of the territory. Until the late 1980s, many Israelis assumed that the party for such negotiations would be Jordan. With the Oslo process, Israel’s “peace partner” became the Palestine Liberation Organization. In both cases, there was no point in hurriedly applying Israeli law to territory that might not remain Israeli because of a negotiated peace settlement.

Israel’s system of military governance in Judea and Samaria was always intended to be temporary. In retaining that system through decades of negotiations with the Palestinians, all of which resulted in their rejection of internationally backed statehood offers, Israel seems to have both severely misjudged the preferences and intentions of its Arab neighbors while also injuring its own citizens, creating a new problem of its own making.

Today, roughly 700,000 Jewish Israelis live in Judea and Samaria—where they have every legal and historical right to live and buy property. Yet Israelis and Arabs alike continue to find themselves governed by an odd patchwork of military regulations that has deliberately never been normalized or transparent to anyone and, over time, has become increasingly unwieldy. Property law is based on obscure Ottoman statutes, permitting for infrastructure projects is difficult and burdensome, and environmental regulations don’t exist for either Jews or Arabs. Clearly, this ad hoc situation is being sustained by a combination of official Israeli delusion and sloth and by external actors whose goal is to make life in these areas as practically unpleasant as possible for everyone.

Five decades of Arab rejectionism interspersed with violent terrorist assaults has made it untenable to continue to hold the legal regulation of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria in limbo. And neither international law nor Western principles of democracy stand in the way of Israel finally applying its own civil law to its own citizens in those areas.

Seth Mandel: The Promise and Peril of Phase 2 in Gaza

The decision to move to the second phase without a clear Hamas disarmament plan in place was not a mistake. As I argued last month, any extensive delay helps Hamas, which is gearing up for another round of fighting at some point. Also, the cease-fire deal pretty much locks any progress in place, since the IDF is in charge of security for any territory under reconstruction. Hamas can dig in, but it won’t advance.

The challenge that Hamas still presents, however, is significant. The scenario that Trump’s team expects to play out is the following: Life for Gazans improves exponentially in the half of the enclave stewarded by the Israelis and a supplemental international force, and pressure on Hamas increases while the humanitarian crisis abates.

But here’s another scenario: The moment shovels get put in the ground on the Israeli-controlled side, Hamas begins firing rockets and challenging the troops along the Yellow Line with skirmishes and attempted incursions. In this environment, the stabilization force never materializes and the technocrats wait for the skies to clear. With rebuilding frozen, Israel has no choice but to go into Hamas-controlled Gaza and disarm the terror group by force. But the renewed fighting takes a toll on the civilians left in Hamas’s half of the enclave, and scenes from the two years of war start replaying themselves.

Trump will obviously support the forced disarmament of Hamas even (or especially) if Israel is the one to do it. But will the Europeans fold? Will the stabilization force dissolve before it’s even on the ground?

There are only two reliable actors in this saga: the U.S. and Israel. Hamas is going to attempt to make it so that the U.S. and Israel are the only actors in the saga at all. As long as the U.S. and Israel are committed to victory, they’ll succeed. Because the enemy always gets a vote, and Hamas always votes for war.

John Ondrasik: The "Free Palestine" Crowd Seems to Have Zero Interest in Freeing Iran

In recent days the tyrannical Iranian regime has conducted mass arrests and massacred thousands of protesters. Yet American college campuses, so recently the site of passionate encampments in support of the Palestinian people, are eerily quiet about what's happening in Iran. The congressional microcaucus known as the Squad are oddly mum about the suffering of women and children in Iran.

What's happening in Iran is a human rights nightmare. The UN Human Rights Council in recent years has been a merry-go-round of "genocide" accusations against Israel. Yet it has issued zero resolutions and held no inquiries about Iran. There is no global demand for humanitarian aid for the Iranian protesters, or even a ceasefire, from the people and institutions who don't hesitate to weigh in on Israel and Gaza.

Tahmineh Dehbozorgi, an attorney with the Institute for Justice in Washington who spent her childhood in Iran, says the millions risking their lives in Iran don't fit neatly into "the lazy moral categories that dominate modern discourse: oppressor and oppressed, colonizer and colonized, white and non-white."

An Egyptian news site reports:

The Grand Imam, Dr. Ahmed Al-Tayeb, Sheikh of Al-Azhar, said that Al-Azhar is fully aware and deeply knowledgeable of the vast difference between Judaism as a heavenly religion and Zionism as a racist settlement and occupation movement.

He continued in an interview published by “Sawt Al-Azhar”: "We are against Zionism and not against Jews. Here in my office, I meet with Jewish religious figures and public figures who are fair and just, who reject Zionism and stand with the rights of the Palestinian people. Some of them have participated in many of the conferences that we have held or that we participate in....Here in Egypt, neither Al-Azhar nor the Egyptians as a whole are known to have any negative stance towards Jews. "

The 2014 ADL report on worldwide antisemitism finds that 75% of Egyptians have antisemitic attitudes.

But it isn't only Egypt - Al Azhar scholars have a long history of blatant antisemitism.

Including this same Ahmed al-Tayeb!

In 2011, he told a rally (where genocide of Jews was promised) that Jews everywhere in the world are seeking to prevent Islamic and Egyptian unity.

In 2013, Tayeb said, "See how we suffer today from global Zionism and Judaism…Since the inception of Islam 1,400 years ago, we have been suffering from Jewish and Zionist interference in Muslim affairs." And he quoted the Quran to prove it.

In 2018, Tayeb said, "As long as this entity is alive and active, the Arabs will remain neither living nor dead, and the Muslims will remain under attack. Note that if we continue this way, it will not end with the Al-Aqsa Mosque. They will march on the Kaaba and on the Prophet’s Mosque [in Medina]. This is on their minds and in their hearts.." This goes beyond the "Al Aqsa Mosque is in Danger" myth to say the Jews want to Judaize Meccan and Medina.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

Jamie Beran, the CEO of the far-Left "Bend the Arc: Jewish Action," writes in a blog at Times of Israel:

Finally, A Bill That Will Actually Fight Antisemitism

We cannot dismantle antisemitism without tools that help us take action. And we’re starting the new year with an important new tool in our kit: a proactive, forward-looking plan that will help fight antisemitism — and all forms of bigotry. Right after the horrific attack at Bondi Beach, Australia, four members of Congress, led by Rep. Jerry Nadler, introduced a bill called the Antisemitism Response and Prevention Act (ARPA), legislation that actually takes meaningful steps to fight for Jewish safety and the safety of our democracy.

Other policies attempting to take on antisemitism have fallen short of taking concrete steps to make Jewish people safer. Well-meaning politicians around the country (and too many in the Jewish community) have supported codifying into law the controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Associations’ (IHRA) definition of antisemitism. But this definition comes with examples that conflate criticism of the Israeli government with antisemitism, politicizing the urgent fight against antisemitism (and potentially even fueling it).

Already we can see that Beran is being disingenuous, because IHRA does not come with examples that conflate normal criticism of the Israeli government with antisemitism. It says that calling Israel a racist endeavor or comparing Israel to Nazi Germany is antisemitic. The people against IHRA are supporting those noxious, hateful statements.

But that is only the start of the problems with this bill. It seems to spend more time protecting left-wing antisemitism than protecting Jews. While a few of the ideas it mentions have some merit, like a national database of hate crimes, the bill comes across as more anti-Trump than pro-Jews - the first four paragraphs are against antisemitism, the successive twelve paragraphs are anti-Trump.

So, for example, it says

The Department of Education has launched investigations into approximately 60 institutions of higher education, not primarily to protect Jewish students from discrimination, but to use the false premise of antisemitism accusations as pretext for forcing the elimination of academic programs related to diversity and Middle Eastern studies, threatening to withdraw Federal funding to compel ideological conformity, and undermining the autonomy and academic freedom of such institutions, with common patterns including lack of due process, conflation of criticism of Israeli government policies with antisemitism, and targeting of protected speech and academic inquiry.

If you don't see the relationship between "diversity programs," Middle East Studies departments and antisemitism, you are willfully blind. Framing Jews as evil oppressors is the starting point of these programs, not a conclusion. (The phrase "compel ideological conformity" is particularly absurd - the conformity exists today and that is what this bill supports.)

There's lots more, but I found this section to be most illuminating: "research and experience demonstrat[es] that approaches are most effective when they address antisemitism as connected to other forms of hatred and extremism..."

This means that to fight antisemitism effectively, it has to be part of a larger program targeting Islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia, and who knows what else.

There are no such studies that show that. None. The closest I found was the Facing History & Ourselves program, where students self-reported being more sensitive to antisemitism, but there was no objective survey before and after the program to see if actual attitudes had changed. Maybe it is good, maybe not, but there is no independent research showing that the approach works.

On the contrary, studies have shown (for example) that DEI trainers were far more likely to demonize Israel (96% of Israel-related tweets negative, 65% of China related tweets positive) and multiple college antisemitism surveys show Jewish students are alienated by DEI programs that they felt targeted them as oppressors.

Antisemitism is different from all other bigotries. Treating it as just one of many forms of hate ends up legitimizing it.

The Israel haters are making things up to support their agendas.

Moreover, much of the pro-Hamas rhetoric on campus and elsewhere is romanticized by progressive voices as "resistance." Calls to attack Jews/"Zionists" worldwide like "Globalize the Intifada" and "By Any Means Necessary" are perfectly valid expressions of "criticism of the Israeli government" according to this bill.

But it is even worse. This bill protects explicit support of Hamas terror and rapes as legitimate criticism of Israeli government policies. There is literally nothing in this bill that would limit, in any way, the activities of pro-Hamas terror groups like Samidoun or SJP on campus. On the contrary, it acts as a shield for them.

In fact, astoundingly, while there is plenty of outraged and emotive language in the bill when referring to Trump policies, its only reference to the October 7 murder, rape and kidnapping spree calls it "Hamas attacks on Israel." The bill could have said "horrific" or "murderous" or "terrorist" - and it chose not to in a report supposedly meant to protect Jews.

The ARPA bill would not protect Jews. Instead, it would protect today's most prominent antisemites.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

01/14 Links Pt2: The Jewish Test; Lessons in Leadership – with President Isaac Herzog; How anti-Zionism emerged as a modern ideology; Home Secretary: West Midlands Police chief ‘no longer has my confidence’

From Ian:

The Jewish Test

Near the Colosseum in Rome stands the Arch of Titus, built by the Emperor Domitian in 81 A.D. to honor his brother as a god. The triumphal monument testifies to the divine power of Titus by memorializing his defeat of the monotheistic Jews 11 years earlier. A relief panel shows legionaries marching in procession, carrying sacred objects looted from the Second Temple during the destruction of Jerusalem: the seven-branched Menorah, the Table of Showbread, the ritual trumpets. On the base of the arch, a modern visitor has scrawled three words in Hebrew: Am Yisrael Chai. “The people of Israel live.”

Two thousand years ago, a Roman emperor built an arch to commemorate the defeat of the Jews. Today, Rome is a museum. The Jews survive. Israel has been reborn in its ancestral land.

Empires rise and fall. The Jews alone among peoples are eternal. Their survival is one of history’s great mysteries. Conquered, dispersed, and persecuted, a small tribe endured across millennia. From antiquity to the modern age, Jews moved from empire to empire, barred from land ownership, excluded from politics, and confined to narrow professions while pressured to convert. In times of eased repression, many assimilated, while others adapted and flourished. With repression’s return, survival again took precedence. A faithful remnant preserved communal cohesion and carried tradition forward without territory, army, or state.

To explain the mystery of Jewish survival, European observers have repeatedly reached for supernatural causes. Their accounts tend to fall into two camps. The first interprets Jewish endurance as demonic. Its most influential exponent was Martin Luther, who insisted that “the devil … has taken possession of this people,” leading them to worship not God but “their gifts, their deeds, their works.” Accusing them of usury, deception, and moral corruption, Luther concluded that “no heathen has done such things and none would do so except the Devil himself and those whom he possesses, like he possesses the Jews.”

The second camp retained the supernatural frame but reversed its moral valence. Instead of demonic possession, it discerned divine design. St. Augustine argued that the continued existence of the Jews after their defeat by Rome served a specific function within Christian history. God preserved the Jewish people so that they might remain living custodians of the Scriptures, whose antiquity and integrity underwrote Christian claims about prophecy and fulfillment. For that reason, Augustine insisted, the Jews were to be neither exterminated nor gathered back to their land and restored politically. Citing Psalm 59, he emphasized that Scripture does not say only, “Slay them not, lest they forget Your law.” It adds, “Disperse them.” Survival without dispersion would have frustrated the divine purpose. Scattered among the nations, Jews endured as witnesses—preserving the texts of the old covenant while, through their continued subordination, testifying to the triumph of the new.

America rejected Europe’s supernatural framework altogether. The Puritans identified with the Israelites of the Hebrew Bible and saw America as a second Promised Land. They did not treat the Jews as cursed enemies. The covenant they imagined was shared, not hierarchical. Meanwhile, the Enlightenment had stripped Jewish survival of theological mystery altogether, grounding civic life in the equality of individuals before the law. From its founding, the United States absorbed Jews into public life as fellow citizens rather than symbols—neither demonic nor providential, but equal participants in a common political order.

Melanie Phillips: Britain’s cultural emergency

There’s been deep shock that a Jewish MP, Damien Egan, was barred by a school in his constituency, Bristol Brunel Academy, from visiting it last September after being invited to speak there about democracy and public service.

The Palestine Solidarity Campaign, teachers and activists from the school and the National Education Union objected to him being given a platform on the grounds that he is vice-chair of Labour Friends of Israel.

The union wrote gloatingly in September:
This is a clear message: politicians who openly support Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza are not welcome in our schools.

The incident was revealed by the Communities Secretary, Steve Reed, when he told a meeting of the Jewish Labour movement that a Jewish MP had been refused permission to visit a school in his own constituency “in case his presence inflames the teachers”.

Reed called this “an absolute outrage”. Labour’s antisemitism adviser Lord Mann described as “one of the most serious incidents of antisemitism” that has happened in Britain.

Others have expressed their horror. What has become of us as a society, they lament, when an MP is prevented from visiting a school in his own constituency? How can this have been allowed to strike both at the core precepts of education and at the basis of parliamentary democracy?

Clearly, such people haven’t been paying attention. They’re shocked because they haven’t realised what’s been happening in acute form ever since the Hamas-led atrocities in southern Israel on October 7 2023, and in less extreme form long before that.

The real concern should be not just that the exclusion of Egan is an attack on education and democracy. More fundamentally, it’s the result of a set of poisonous lies to demonise and destroy the Jewish state, and represent it as such an abominable evil that every Jew who supports it (which most do) are also evil in turn. This puts a target on the back of every Jew in Britain unless they denounce Israel for daring to defend itself against genocidal attack.

This monstrous calumny has now achieved the status of settled wisdom among the educated classes. That hasn’t just happened as a result of the “pro-Gaza” campaign that’s been roaring out of control for the past 27 months. It’s the result of a process that’s been going on for decades.

Seth Mandel: Kathy Hochul, Keep Our Names Out of Your Mouth

In between then and the Hamas rally, violent incursions of synagogues took place outside New York, too. At a synagogue in Los Angeles, anti-Semitic “protesters” broke in and smashed things up during an event. Then Mississippi’s largest synagogue—the same one firebombed by the Ku Klux Klan during the Civil Rights era—was burned to the ground by a man who claims he was acting against the “synagogue of Satan.” A few days later, the remains of a California shul destroyed in last year’s wildfires was vandalized.

And this is just the past six weeks.

The enemies of the Jews across the political spectrum, though especially the “globalize the intifada” set, have engaged in a campaign of harassment, intimidation, and violence at synagogues around the world, very much now including America. If you cannot say that without saying “and Islamophobia,” as the spineless Gov. Hochul did in her speech, you’d be better off not saying anything at all.

It’s not merely that “and Islamophobia” gives anti-Semitism the “all lives matter” treatment. In promoting a false equivalence between the two, Hochul has slandered the Jews of New York and put them in continued danger. She has also equated the victims and the perpetrators in a moment of moral obtuseness and political recklessness.

It’s not that I don’t understand why other cultures would strain to hitch their wagons to the Jews: We are the world’s eternal people, always standing back up in time to watch our pursuers fall into the ash heap of history.

But the “and Islamophobia” nonsense needs to stop, and Jewish leaders must insist on it. The next time Kathy Hochul, or any other of America’s sponge-willed political mediocrities, considers suggesting that being Jewish is itself “Islamophobic,” they should say nothing at all. If you can’t give us the basic respect we deserve, then just keep our names out of your mouth altogether.

01/14 Links Pt1: How the Islamic Republic terrorised Iran – and the world; Why do they march for Gaza, but not Iran?; Witkoff announces start of Phase 2 of Gaza peace plan

From Ian:

How the Islamic Republic terrorised Iran – and the world

For all the phoney ‘anti-imperialists’ who have occasionally simped for the Islamic Republic, seeing it as some exotic bulwark against Western hegemony, it has long pursued its own Islamist imperialism across the Middle East. Hezbollah was founded by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard following Israel’s incursion into Lebanon in 1982, and has been charged with menacing the Jewish State ever since. In the late-1980s, Iran courted Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza. Their full genocidal ambitions burst into the open on 7 October 2023, when they raped and murdered their way through southern Israel, to the rapturous approval of Tehran. Shia militias in Iraq and the Houthis in Yemen complete Iran’s so-called Axis of Resistance, pitted against America and the Jews – now brought low by Israeli and American bombs during the Gaza War, and by the ousting of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, who had hosted its militants.

Beyond Tehran’s direct sponsorship of terror – which has extended into the West, too – the success of the Iranian Revolution became a symbol that the future belonged to political Islam. That another, barbaric world was possible. The Islamic Republic may have been a Shiite state, but insurgent Sunni groups took much inspiration from it, too. Ten months after the revolution, Sunni Islamists occupied the Grand Mosque of Mecca, hoping to unseat a Saudi monarchy they saw as corrupted by the West and a Saudi clergy they saw as quietist and insufficiently Islamic. In turn, as Ali Ansari and Kasra Aarabi have noted, Khomeini’s efforts to spread the revolution, to stake a claim as the leader of a new global, Islamic vanguard, accelerated Saudi efforts to export its own Wahhabi ideology, ‘nurtur[ing] the rise of Sunni fundamentalism from Africa to the Far East’. We can also credit the ayatollah with effectively globalising anti-blasphemy violence, when he issued his fatwa against Salman Rushdie on Valentine’s Day 1989, calling on Muslims the world over to murder the offending author.

Over five decades of infamy, the Islamic Republic has been a menace to life, limb and liberty far beyond Iran’s borders. What a moment for the world it would be if it were to fall.

Seth Mandel: Anti-America, Anti-Israel, and Anti-Knowledge

Jewish Insider has a fun scoop today that illustrates one of the iron laws of Western debate over the Middle East: The more knowledgeable one is on the subject, the more supportive of a strong U.S.-Israel relationship one is likely to be.

For example, U.S. aid to Israel is actually an economic stimulus program for American domestic manufacturers in defense-related industries. As a bonus, some hardware gets field tested in scenarios in which all of the risk is borne by Israel.

As a result, some of the maintenance of the U..S-led world order is offloaded to a capable ally while creating jobs here at home and keeping research and development humming along.

You can support this or you can oppose it, but this is what is meant by “U.S. aid to Israel.”

Yet opponents of U.S. military aid to Israel usually say things like “Americans are poor because the Zionist Occupied Government is sending their money to Jews abroad” rather than discuss the merits of actual policy, which is the opposite of sending Americans’ money away.

But because the arrangement is so beneficial to America, President Trump was shocked by the suggestion that U.S. policy would be influenced by these idiots. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is seeking to base defense manufacturing in Israel so as to defang the “aid” talking point among pundits who are far more influential in this debate than their range of knowledge would suggest they should be.

“When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proposed winding down U.S. military aid late last year,” Jewish Insider reports, “President Donald Trump was bewildered and did not immediately support the move.”

The president’s attitude seems to be: If a bunch of so-called America-first illiterates want to sabotage American defense manufacturing, they should just be ignored. To wit: “Trump could not understand why Netanyahu would propose ending American military aid to Israel and disagrees that the move would improve U.S. public opinion on the Jewish state, one source familiar with the president’s perspective told JI. He is skeptical that the plan would benefit either country, but is also not dismissing it out of hand, they said.”

From aid to alliance: Why Israeli leaders say ending US military assistance is long overdue

The Heritage plan calls for a 19-year phaseout, but Flesch said he wasn’t surprised to learn of the 10-year timeframe proposed by Netanyahu. “There were people on the Israeli side who were saying, ‘You’re being much too generous. Let’s end it sooner,” he said.

Partly driving the timing of the push are changing attitudes among Americans, including conservatives, regarding Israel. Harvard-Harris and Pew Research Center Polls show declining support for the Jewish state among younger Americans.

“We did this largely recognizing that on the U.S. side of the ledger, there were issues with U.S. support toward Israel, largely on the Democratic side, but obviously a little bit on the Republican side,” said Flesch. “Our assessment was it is time now with the renegotiation on the MOU to take into account these shifting domestic political dynamics and concerns.”

Despite supporting an end to military aid, Gideon Israel, of the Jerusalem-Washington Center, stressed that the growing American opposition to aid, including among young conservatives, can only be described as a “colossal Israeli public relations failure.”

“The fact that in America it’s seen as a charity is a failure by multiple prime ministers to explain that this is a great deal for America. All they’ve done is say, ‘Thank you,’ reinforcing the impression that it’s a handout,” he said. “And so we shouldn’t be surprised by a situation where everybody thinks it’s a waste of money and that Israel is a parasite.”

He described Israel as both a marketing and R&D department for American weaponry, boosting U.S. arms sales globally while also improving them. When Israel buys and successfully uses advanced U.S. weapons, such as the F-35, and takes out Russian and Chinese-made equipment, it proves their superiority, prompting other countries to buy them, he said.

“What they call ‘aid’ is pumped back into the America economy many times over,” he continued. “Yet, the only one who over the years has really talked about the benefits the U.S. received was Yoram Ettinger. He was an island in the sea.”

Ettinger said, “It’s true that I don’t hear anyone among Israel’s top policy makers or top diplomats in the U.S. educating Americans on the fact that this is the best-ever investment made by the United States, with a return on investment well over 1,000% year in and year out.”

When Israel first received the F-35 in 2018, it was a troubled aircraft with technical deficiencies, he noted. Israel quickly resolved those issues, “not because we are so smart, but because of the challenges facing Israel, which force us to upgrade any system which we receive from the United States.” Israeli F-35I Adir jets fly in formation. Photo by 1st Lt. Erik D. Anthony/U.S. Air Force.

It is well documented that Israel’s version of the F-35, called the “Adir,” includes extended range and significantly upgraded capabilities, including electronic warfare systems to counter Russian and Iranian air defense systems, which Israel has shared with the United States.

According to Defense.Info, in its June 14, 2025 issue: “Pentagon officials have acknowledged that Israel’s experience provides valuable insights into sustaining F-35 operations during high-intensity conflict.”

On Jan. 7, Lockheed Martin reported a record-breaking year for the F-35 program, delivering 191 F-35s, beating the previous delivery record of 142.

From the Jewish Federation of Greater Ann Arbor:

In December, Jewish Federation’s Community Relations Director Rabbi Asher Lopatin led an academic and cultural mission to Syria, with the goal of solidifying and deepening relations with the University of Damascus and the Damascus National Museum and American universities. ...

After a warm VIP welcome at the airport, the group visited the well- kept Al-Franje synagogue and were honored to light Chanukah candles there to celebrate the eighth day of Chanukah. They continued to the Jewish cemetery to help with bringing the marker of Rabbi Chayim Vital’s wife – currently strewn upside down in a faraway place in the cemetery – to the chapel housing Rabbi Chayim Vital’s stone. Another Chanukah Menorah was lit at the new five-star Semiramis Hotel, where the owner treated the group to a fully kosher meal – including new dishes and silverware purchased just for kosher customers and meat brought in from America. The chefs proudly and graciously showed the group the fully kosher kitchen and preparation space.

RT Arabic reports about why the luxury hotel owner decided to make kosher food available:

Munther Nuzha, the owner of the Semiramis Hotel, explained that the idea began about two or three months ago, when the hotel hosted an American Jewish delegation that was touring Syria. He met them at the hotel for dinner, and among them was an American rabbi, but he was unable to eat any of the food provided.

He added that the rabbi explained to him that he couldn't eat because the food wasn't kosher, prompting him to ask what could be offered. The response was that only cut fruit was available. He noted his surprise, wondering how a religious Jew could attend a dinner invitation without suitable food being provided. The rabbi replied that the solution was to find a restaurant that served kosher food.

He added that the idea seemed good to him, and he expressed his support to the rabbi, believing that the availability of kosher food would encourage Jews to visit Syria and feel welcome. After the rabbi returned to the United States, he contacted him later and informed him of the desire of a delegation of American Jewish academics to eat kosher food at the hotel.

The hotel owner confirmed that he had no objection, stressing that the hotel staff also welcomed the idea. He said that Syria today welcomes all visitors, especially Jews, to show that there is no personal animosity towards them, recalling that Syria historically had a large number of Syrian Jews, and that it is a country where different sects have coexisted without problems.

The times they are a-changing.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

Disclaimer: the views expressed here are the sole responsibility of the author, weekly Judean Rose columnist Varda Meyers Epstein.

President Trump keeps touting the peace he brought to the Middle East. But if this is peace, I’d hate to see war. Though actually, I’ve seen war and I’m still seeing war—because we still have war. Since the ceasefire took effect on October 10, there have been 78 Hamas violations of the ceasefire.

Below are the president’s own “peace” claims—grouped by date—asserting or clearly implying that peace now exists in the Middle East.

*October 13, 2025 (remarks released October 14): “At long last, we have peace in the Middle East. And now we’re there.” In the same remarks, Trump also declared, “After years of suffering and bloodshed, the war in Gaza is over.”
*October 16, 2025 (Truth Social): Trump described what he called a “Great Accomplishment of Peace in the Middle East.”
*October 25, 2025 (Truth Social and Air Force One press gaggle): “We have a very strong PEACE in the Middle East,” Trump wrote, adding that it had a good chance of being “EVERLASTING.” Speaking to reporters later that day, he said, “We have peace in the Middle East. That’s what we have. Great peace in the Middle East,” and insisted, “This is real peace.”
*November 10, 2025 (Truth Social): Trump referred to “PEACE in the Middle East” and described it as “the Great Miracle that is taking place in the Middle East.”
*December 1, 2025 (Truth Social): He claimed “SUCCESS, already attained, for PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST!”
*December 11–12, 2025 (White House remarks): Trump stated, “We actually do have a real peace in the Middle East.”
*December 16, 2025 (White House remarks): He said the administration’s goal was to ensure that there “remains … peace in the Middle East.”
*December 18, 2025 (national address): In a national address, Trump said the Gaza truce had “brought peace to the Middle East for the first time in 3,000 years.”

You’d never know the reality on the ground if you tried to Google “Hamas ceasefire violations.” What you get instead is page after page of propaganda about Israel’s supposed violations—Israel’s “pretend” violations—while Hamas malfeasance disappears into a black hole. Seventy-eight instances of such malfeasance, ignored or downplayed, because the media (and apparently Google) are more comfortable amplifying accusations against Israel than confronting what Hamas actually does. They love anyone who murders, rapes, beheads, and burns Jews. Including babies.

So they cover up the truth and peddle lies. That we expect. What is galling is DJT’s continued claims that we have peace. But actually, this too is to be expected. The president wants to have accomplished peace—and yes, he’s a braggart—so he calls it peace even when it isn’t. Boy, would he like to earn that Nobel Peace Prize. Maybe he thinks if he says it enough—peace, peace, peace—the world will be convinced and he’ll get that prize. And if he doesn’t get that prize—which almost assuredly he will not—he’ll say that only because he’s Donald Trump, they won’t give him credit for bringing peace to the Middle East—which he assuredly did not.

Don’t get me wrong—Donald Trump got all but one of our remaining hostages out. For that, the Israeli people are hugely grateful. But this is not peace, and IDF soldiers have still been killed. For their families, there is no peace—also for the rest of Israel. We all know we’re still at war.

For anyone who wants specifics, below is what that “peace” has consisted of since October 10: 78 separate ceasefire violations and hostile incidents, in chronological order:

Oct 13 — Arrow Unit killed 32 Gazans accused of collaborating with Israel (incl. Doghmush clan members).
Oct 14 — Hamas failed to return over half the remaining slain hostages within the required 72 hours (hostage-return breach).
Oct 14 — “Suspects” crossed the Yellow Line (Incident A); IDF opened fire; Gaza health ministry claimed fatalities.
Oct 14 — “Suspects” crossed the Yellow Line (Incident B); IDF opened fire; Gaza health ministry claimed fatalities.
Oct 15 — Hamas returned a body that did not match any hostage (forensics mismatch).
Oct 15 — Hamas publicly executed 8 captives (incl. Doghmush clan members).
Oct 18 — “Suspicious vehicle” crossed the Yellow Line and approached troops; IDF fire; Hamas claimed 11 family members killed.
Oct 19 — Tunnel ambush in Rafah: 2 IDF killed, 3 wounded (Israel called blatant ceasefire violation; Hamas denied responsibility).
Oct 27 — Hamas returned partial remains of a hostage already recovered by IDF (Netanyahu office: “clear violation”).
Oct 28 — Sniper/RPG attack killed 1 IDF soldier in Rafah area (Hamas denied responsibility).
Nov 1 — Hamas handed over 3 bodies claimed as hostages; Israel said none matched any hostage.
Nov 2 — Terrorist crossed Yellow Line and approached troops (north Gaza); IAF struck.
Nov 3 — Multiple individuals crossed Yellow Line and advanced toward troops (south Gaza); troops fired.
Nov 3 — Israel assessed ~200 Hamas fighters remained in tunnels within Israeli-controlled southern Gaza (non-withdrawal breach).
Nov 4 — Terrorist crossed Yellow Line and approached troops; eliminated.
Nov 5 — Two terrorists crossed Yellow Line and advanced toward troops (central Gaza) (Incident A); eliminated.
Nov 5 — Two terrorists crossed Yellow Line and advanced toward troops (central Gaza) (Incident B); eliminated.
Nov 8 — Two terrorists crossed/approached troops (north Gaza); one eliminated.
Nov 8 — Additional terrorist crossed/approached troops; eliminated.
Nov 10 — Two terrorists crossed/approached troops (south Gaza); eliminated.
Nov 11 — Terrorist crossed/approached troops (south Gaza); eliminated.
Nov 12 — Four terrorists identified east of Yellow Line (Rafah); 3 killed.
Nov 12 — Terrorist crossed Yellow Line and approached troops (Khan Younis area); eliminated.
Nov 16 — Terrorist crossed Yellow Line and approached troops (north Gaza); eliminated.
Nov 17 — Several crossed Yellow Line and buried suspicious objects near IDF forces; one eliminated, others retreated.
Nov 17 — Individual crossed Yellow Line and approached troops; eliminated.
Nov 18 — Two terrorists crossed/approached forces (south Gaza); both eliminated.
Nov 19 — Several terrorists crossed Yellow Line and approached forces (north Gaza); at least one eliminated.
Nov 19 — Terrorists opened fire toward IDF in Khan Younis; IDF called it a ceasefire violation.
Nov 20 — Two terrorists crossed/approached troops (south Gaza); “hit identified,” outcome unspecified.
Nov 21 — ~15 terrorists emerged from underground infrastructure east of Yellow Line in eastern Rafah; later 6 killed, 5 apprehended.
Nov 22 — Armed terrorist fired from a humanitarian access road (IDF video); attacker eliminated.
Nov 22 — IDF said it eliminated 3 terrorists likely linked to prior Rafah tunnel escape attempt.
Nov 22 — IDF said 2 other militants were eliminated in a separate strike (total in that episode reported as five).
Nov 22 — IDF: 2 terrorists crossed Yellow Line and advanced toward troops; eliminated.
Nov 24 — Terrorist crossed Yellow Line and approached IDF in Khan Younis; struck by IAF.
Nov 24 — Two terrorists crossed Yellow Line and approached IDF near Khan Younis; struck by IAF.
Nov 24 — Several terrorists crossed Yellow Line and approached troops (north Gaza); threatened forces.
Nov 24 — Additional terrorists attempted to approach troops in same area; IDF said 2 eliminated total across both Nov 24 northern incidents.
Nov 25 — PIJ delay in transfer of hostage remains (Netanyahu: “additional violation”); body later returned and identified as Dror Or.
Nov 25 — Terrorist crossed Yellow Line and approached forces (north Strip); eliminated.
Nov 25 — Nahal Brigade: 5 armed individuals emerged from tunnels in “Rafah Pocket”; eliminated.
Nov 26 — 6 terrorists emerged from tunnels in Rafah; 2 captured, 4 eliminated.
Nov 26 — IDF struck Hamas operative planning an imminent sniper plot in northern Gaza.
Nov 26 — PIJ member approached IDF in southern Gaza (immediate threat); eliminated.
Nov 26 — Individual crossed Yellow Line and approached IDF; eliminated.
Nov 28 — Terrorist approached troops near Yellow Line (south Gaza); eliminated by IAF.
Nov 29 — Two suspects crossed Yellow Line, did “suspicious activities,” and approached troops (south Gaza); eliminated by IAF.
Nov 29 — Terrorist crossed Yellow Line and approached troops later same day; eliminated.
Dec 1 — Two terrorists crossed Yellow Line (north Gaza) (Incident A); eliminated.
Dec 1 — Two terrorists crossed Yellow Line (north Gaza) (Incident B); eliminated.
Dec 1 — Terrorist crossed Yellow Line and approached forces (central Gaza); eliminated with air support.
Dec 3 — Tunnel ambush in eastern Rafah: Sayeret Golani engaged attackers; 4 IDF injured.
Dec 4 — Terrorist crossed Yellow Line and approached IDF (south Gaza); hit/eliminated per IDF.
Dec 5 — Two terrorists with suspicious items approached IDF (north Gaza); struck by IAF; one confirmed eliminated.
Dec 6 — Multiple terrorists crossed Yellow Line (Incident A); IDF reported eliminations (part of three total across day).
Dec 6 — Multiple terrorists crossed Yellow Line (Incident B); IDF reported eliminations (part of three total across day).
Dec 7 — Terrorist crossed Yellow Line and approached forces (south Gaza); eliminated.
Dec 10 — Two terrorists crossed Yellow Line and approached forces (north Gaza); one eliminated.
Dec 11 — Two terrorists crossed Yellow Line and approached forces (south Gaza); one eliminated.
Dec 13 — Terrorist crossed Yellow Line and approached forces (north Gaza); eliminated.
Dec 14 — Terrorist crossed Yellow Line and approached forces (north Gaza); eliminated.
Dec 15 — Terrorist crossed Yellow Line and approached forces; eliminated.
Dec 16 — Terrorist crossed Yellow Line carrying a suspicious object; eliminated.
Dec 18 — Terrorist crossed Yellow Line and approached forces; eliminated by IAF.
Dec 19 — Terrorist crossed Yellow Line and approached forces (central Gaza); eliminated by IAF.
Dec 20 — Two terrorists crossed Yellow Line and approached forces (north Gaza); killed by IAF.
Dec 21 — Suspects gathered near Yellow Line; warning fire; 3 crossed and approached forces; IAF struck (outcome unclear).
Dec 21 — Two terrorists crossed Yellow Line and approached forces (Incident A); IAF struck (outcome unclear).
Dec 21 — Two terrorists crossed Yellow Line and approached forces (Incident B); IAF struck (outcome unclear).
Dec 24 — Charge detonated on armored vehicle during Rafah clearing; 1 IDF soldier lightly wounded.
Dec 25 — Terrorist crossed Yellow Line and approached forces (north Gaza); eliminated.
Dec 25 — Two terrorists crossed Yellow Line and approached forces (south Gaza); eliminated by IAF.
Jan 2 — Terrorist crossed Yellow Line and approached forces (south Gaza); killed.
Jan 3 — IDF destroyed shaft with loaded rocket launcher ready to fire at southern Israel, deployed after ceasefire (explicit violation).
Jan 5 — Terrorist crossed Yellow Line and approached forces (south Gaza); eliminated by IAF.
Jan 7 — Hamas fired into an area where IDF forces were operating (north Gaza); IDF called it a blatant violation.
Jan 8 — Failed launch from Gaza City toward Israel; projectile fell near a hospital; IDF struck launch point.

All ceasefire violations listed above are drawn from reporting by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Long War Journal (longwarjournal.org), which has provided detailed, day-by-day tracking of militant activity in Gaza since the ceasefire.

I’m not surprised at the president’s braggadocio in the least, but I wish he would be honest about what is actually happening in Gaza. About the fact that not only has Hamas violated the ceasefire 78 times as of this writing, but that the war is not over. I wish the president would admit that Hamas is reorganizing, rearming, repairing and reopening tunnels, and reasserting its full control over the parts of Gaza still under its authority.

🚨Hamas has been violating the ceasefire since the beginning.

Video: @HonestReporting pic.twitter.com/7aQTetBPmz
— Israel War Room (@IsraelWarRoom) November 28, 2025

Since the U.S.-mediated ceasefire in October 2025, Hamas has used the lull to regroup: reconstituting command and policing structures, replenishing weapons stocks, restoring damaged tunnel routes, and tightening its grip over the parts of western Gaza it controls.

Much of this has unfolded out of the Western spotlight. The tunnels did not vanish; they went back underground—literally and politically—while Gaza’s civilians were pushed into ever tighter spaces above them. In that crowded terrain, Hamas can rebuild with more cover and less room for anyone to separate fighters from families. Israeli assessments say the group is returning to a familiar method: tucking command posts, weapons caches, and staging areas into the seams of civilian life—near hospitals, UN-linked compounds, and schools—locations Israel argues have repeatedly been used as shields for military activity.

Meanwhile, the president keeps saying that Hamas will disarm the easy way or the hard way, but it never ever happens. He doesn’t push it. Instead, he’s trying to shove Qatar and Turkey down our throats as if they were good actors, for his Board of Peace (of which there is not).

We deserve safety and peace. But this is not peace and Israel and the Israeli people are not safe. This is not what we bargained for when we agreed to this ceasefire. Or maybe we did. The more things change, the more they stay the same. We are told again and again that Trump is the most pro-Israel president ever, and we are actually giving him the Israel Prize, but unfortunately, the peace that’s breaking out all over, is not peace, and is not breaking out all over.

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