Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, November 28, 2025

11/28 Links Pt2: The Islamists’ Trojan horse; This Cambridge Union debate was a foregone conclusion. But my words needed saying; Sally Rooney is not a victim of censorship

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: The Islamists’ Trojan horse

The Palestinian cause has had an even deeper effect. It has simply corrupted discourse and morality in the West. By adopting Palestinianism as their badge of moral worth, people have signed up to an agenda of lies that they assume is incontrovertible truth.

Convinced that the Palestinians are the wretched of the earth, Western liberals refuse to see that they are actually supporting a genocidal agenda. By internalizing Palestinian Jew-hatred, they now see nothing wrong in themselves spewing out vicious antisemitic tropes.

Demonizing Israel in the name of anti-racism, they have turned morality inside out, reversing victim and aggressor. That’s why, after the terror attacks on Oct. 7, so many of them denied Israeli victimization and instead grotesquely blamed Israel for abuses such as war crimes or genocide, of which Israel was innocent but of which the Palestinians were guilty.

This pathological projection by aggressors of their own evil deeds onto their victims is hardwired into the Palestinian cause and indeed the Islamist world.

The Islamists do this because they believe that Islam is perfection, and everything beyond it is the province of the devil. Islamist aggression against the West is therefore falsely framed as a defense against Western attacks on Islam.

This was why British Muslims in Birmingham justified their exclusion of the Maccabi Tel Aviv away-fans from the club’s match against Aston Villa in October by claiming that the Israeli fans had a record of violence.

They based this on the utterly false assertion that a violent, pre-planned Arab “Jew-hunt” against Maccabi fans at a match in Amsterdam last year, in which the Israelis were chased through the city, beaten and one of them forced into a canal, was in fact a major attack by Israeli “hooligans” against local Muslims.

By allowing the Palestinian cause to subvert their ability to distinguish truth from lies and right from wrong, Western progressives have damaged something rather closer to home than the truth about the Israel-Arab impasse. It meant that they can’t see how their own society is being Islamized.

That’s why the knee-jerk response after any Islamist atrocities in the West is to worry about attacks on Muslims. It’s why in Britain, any criticism of the police delivering “two-tier justice” by treating Muslims less harshly than others, or concern about attempts to Islamize the curriculum of some state-run schools, or speaking about the overwhelmingly Muslim identity of the rape and grooming gangs is all denounced as “Islamophobia” and silenced.

Palestinianism is the Trojan horse for the Islamization of the West.

Mamdani is motivated, above all, by his passion for the Palestinian cause and his hatred of Israel.

It’s clear from his transition team—a nightmarish collection of Israel-haters, nihilists and ultra-leftists—that he intends to drive a wedge down the middle of the Jewish community by using anti-Zionist Jews as human shields to protect him from charges of antisemitism as he pursues his vendetta against Israel.

New York Jews who denounce Israel will receive protection and favors; Jews who are assumed to support Israel will be thrown to the wolves.

And it will all be done in the language of human rights, justice and international law.

UN Solidarity Day ignores Jewish refugees expelled from Arab countries

This isn’t just a perversion of history. It’s perverted, period.

Tomorrow, the United Nations marks “International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.” The date, November 29, was not chosen by chance. On November 29, 1947, the UN accepted the Partition Plan that would lead to the establishment of the State of Israel. The Arab world rejected the partition and declared war on the nascent Jewish state, hoping to swiftly eradicate it. This is the origin of the “Nakba,” the Palestinian “catastrophe.”

Choosing to commemorate one side of the conflict – the side that launched the war – and on that particular date, is more than cynical. It’s manipulative; a reframing of the narrative. It also deliberately ignores the other half of the story. Hence on November 30, Israel commemorates the expulsion of more than 800,000 Jews from Arab and Muslim lands who came to Israel. These are the Middle East’s most overlooked refugees.

Two years after the Hamas-led invasion and mega-atrocity on October 7, 2023, to mark International Solidarity with the Palestinians, while ignoring what has been inflicted on Israel and the Jewish world, is particularly jarring.

Thanks to the UN granting the Palestinians “perpetual refugee status,” the number of Palestinian refugees has risen in the past 70-plus years from some 750,000 to more than five million. So much for the charges of “genocide” by Israel.

But what happened to the Jews?
The Jews who once lived in the Muslim world have all but disappeared. In places like Algeria and Libya, once the homes of vibrant Jewish communities, not one Jew is left. In Yemen, the Jewish population dropped from more than 55,000 in 1948 to less than a handful today – and that includes poor Levi Salem Musa Marhabi, who has been languishing in a Houthi prison since 2016 for helping to smuggle a Torah scroll out to Israel.

Apart from launching a war on the newborn Jewish state in 1948, the Arab world also took revenge on the Jews living among them with devastating riots and anti-Jewish measures. According to Israeli Foreign Ministry statistics, “[Since 1948]: In the North African region, 259,000 Jews fled from Morocco, 140,000 from Algeria, 100,000 from Tunisia, 75,000 from Egypt, and another 38,000 from Libya. In the Middle East, 135,000 Jews were exiled from Iraq, 55,000 from Yemen, 34,000 from Turkey, 20,000 from Lebanon, and 18,000 from Syria. Iran forced out 25,000 Jews.”

In other words, the Jews have been the victims of ethnic cleansing. And when the Jews disappeared, thousands of years of Jewish heritage, history, and culture were wiped out with them.

Father of Ran Gvili, one of two remaining hostages, to speak at possible final Tel Aviv rally

Itzik Gvili, the father of Master Sgt. Ran Gvili, one of the two remaining slain hostages in Gaza, will speak Saturday night at what may be the final rally in Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square.

Gvili and Thai worker Sudthisak Rinthalak are the two slain captives still held in Gaza, after the body of Kibbutz Be’eri’s Dror Or was released earlier this week.

Gvili was killed battling Hamas terrorists in Kibbutz Alumim on October 7, 2023, and his body was abducted to Gaza. Rinthalak was killed by Hamas terrorists the same day in Kibbutz Be’eri, where he was employed as an agricultural worker.

The other speakers at Saturday night’s Tel Aviv rally are Jon Polin, the father of murdered hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin; Ayelet Goldin, sister of slain soldier Lt. Hadar Goldin; Nira Sharabi, wife of Yossi Sharabi, a hostage slain in Hamas captivity; and Eyal Eshel, father of surveillance soldier Roni Eshel, who was killed on October 7 at the Nahal Oz base.

Alongside the Tel Aviv rally, additional protests will be held at Shaar HaNegev Junction and Carmei Gat, the Kiryat Gat neighborhood home to the evacuated Kibbutz Nir Oz community.

Jerusalem’s Safeguarding Our Shared Home protest group said that it will hold a farewell event on Saturday evening for the Hostages’ Tent at the corner of Aza Road and Balfour, erected since the start of the struggle for the release of the hostages.

A spokesperson for the Hostages Families Forum said Friday that it hasn’t yet been announced whether there will be future rallies.

The forum said earlier this week that Saturday’s rally may be the last as the organization will greatly narrow its activities now that there are only two families left to support.

The Forum recommended stopping the rallies by the end of November, given the cost of around NIS 200,000 ($61,000) each week to erect a stage with video and sound systems, adding that the events don’t serve the current situation of terror groups apparently searching for and locating the remaining bodies in Gaza.

The Gvili family has said it understands the Forum’s decision.

Rinthalak’s family is located in Thailand, and while the Forum is in touch with the Thai Embassy, it has not been involved in rallies. Security forces pay their respects as a convoy carrying the body of a hostage arrives at the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute in Tel Aviv, November 25, 2025. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)

Itzik Gvili said Thursday that he feared his son would never be returned.

“We pray, of course, that he will not be another Ron Arad or [Hadar] Goldin,” Itzik Gvili told Kan news. “That we don’t drag it out for many more years.”

11/28 Links Pt1: Inside the IDF's battle to win world's toughest information war; The PA plan to steal hundreds of millions in foreign aid; Israel's F-35 Combat Secrets That Shocked the Pentagon

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This chart on US antisemitism trends should scare the hell out of you

It is not true that antisemitism is worse now than ever before in America.

In the 1930s and 1940s, antisemitism was mainstream. A survey in 1938, after Kritallnacht, found 53% of Americans blamed European Jews for their Nazi persecution and 60% held negative views about Jews (e.g., "greedy," "pushy," "dishonest").

After Pearl Harbor, Jews were seen as the "greatest threat" to U.S. welfare by 40-50% of Americans - more than any other group including Japanese or Germans!

In the 1940s, even after the Holocaust, 58% of Americans had very negative attitudes towards Jews.

Things slowly became better. In the 1950s, between 30-40% of Americans believed standard antisemitic tropes. That went down to the 22-28% range in the 1960s, and continued to go down steadily until 2019, when it hit an all-time low of 11% of Americans agreeing with several antisemitic stereotypes.

But between 2019 and 2024, we have rocketed back up to 1960s levels.

As a reminder, in the 1960s, Jews were routinely excluded from clubs, from many law firms, and - unofficially - from many suburban housing complexes and resort hotels. Companies also adhered to the Arab boycott which demanded no Jews in top positions of companies they would deal with.

US antisemitism is now back to the levels it was at then.

It gets worse.

In the 1960s, 20% of young people felt that Jews had "too much power." That went down to 10% in 2018.

In 2023 it was at 37%, nearly quadrupling in only five years.

Unlike previous decades, today's youth - as well as college educated students - are more likely to be antisemitic than their parents.

Also, this is the first time since the 1930s that antisemitism was becoming mainstream among both the political Left and the Right.

The time to sound the alarm is now. This is huge change in both amount and direction for antisemitism in America, and there is precious little being done to combat it at a root level.

(1940s and 1950s data from Gallup/Roper polls, since the 1960s from the ADL. The 1980s numbers were copied from the 1970s; they had no survey then.)

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

My last post on Peter Beinart's craven apology to his BDS comrades for speaking at Tel Aviv University was scathing, but it didn't examine his thought process. And a deeper examination reveals something that we all need to learn from.

Beinart is very smart. He knew about the BDSers' anger at his talk beforehand, and he went ahead and gave it anyway. So why would he defend his decision before the talk and then, afterwards, apologize for it? The BDSers who aren't accepting his apology have a point - if he really cares about their feelings, as his apology stated, then he was as aware of their objections before the talk as he was afterwards.

Something must have happened at the talk that prompted him to reverse his opinion on the propriety of his speech.

Unfortunately, there is no video of the speech or the Q&A. But there is one detailed article about it as a blog at Times of Israel, by Alec Mauer.

Mauer says that Beinart was one of his childhood heroes. He shares Beinart's ideas of 15 years ago about the two state solution, of being against BDS. He is disappointed that Beinart's position today makes no sense to living, breathing Israelis - including the liberal ones who attend TAU or who make films. Beinart repeated BDS claims that they are not boycotting individuals but only institutions, and being at one such institution, he understands that this is a nonsensical distinction.

Based on his report, it appears that many of the students who attended were like him - people who are liberal, who want Palestinians to have a state and equal rights, but who actually live there.

In other words, Beinart 2025 met Beinart 2010 - and couldn't win an argument with himself. He was confronted with people who share his stated goals but actually think about them realistically. And he failed to move them.

In the past 15 years, while Beinart moved more and more to the anti-Israel Left, he came up with reasons that sounded reasonable to his new audience - but that made increasingly little sense to those on the Israeli Left who would be affected by his desired policies. He spoke to echo chambers of progressives in America who look at the world through the simplistic oppressor vs. oppressed lens and the feedback in that echo chamber prompted him to keep moving that way.

One crucial point that is not often mentioned in these contexts: his livelihood became more and more dependent on his political positions. It is incredibly difficult to think independently when your income depends on thinking only one way. As progressive Americans moved more towards blatant antisemitism, Beinart had to work not to alienate them.

His talk at TAU showed him that his progression from liberal Zionist to anti-Israel activist, which he pretends was a natural evolution, did not impress those who are exactly like he used to be. They knew his arguments and they wanted to hear him answer their questions about them. He couldn't do it.

Before the talk, he believed the praise heaped on him by his followers, that his arguments are airtight, that he can convince any sincere liberal Zionist of the righteousness of his new positions by quoting Amnesty and B'Tselem. When he realized that he was not nearly as consistent or smart as he thought he was, he decided that going to TAU was a mistake. But he cannot admit he couldn't win the arguments.

Beinart didn't go to Israel for dialogue. He went to admonish the students. He went not as an intellectual but as a prophet. And the students would have none of that.

A truly humble person would have listened to the students and admitted that he doesn't have the answers. A conceited person blames those who refuted him as being part of the evil enemy.

Beinart's apology was not an act of contrition. It was an act of conceit to avoid admitting his hypocrisy. Usually apologies are signs of humility, but in this case, Beinart's apology was an act of self preservation. And the BDSers understand that.

Humility is a necessary component of growth. Beinart's arrogance shows what happens when one believes that they are infallible - their own ethics go out the window to keep from admitting they are wrong.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

It was inevitable, but @PeterBeinart has now outsourced his brain to BDS

Peter Beinart spoke at Tel Aviv University this week. Both Israel haters and Zionists criticized him for this, and he apologized to only one side.

But one aspect of his craven apology appears to be Beinart's first direct support for BDS against all Israeli institutions, not just "settlements" or "aspects of BDS" as he had argued before.

By speaking earlier this week at Tel Aviv University, I made a serious mistake.

In the past, when formulating my views about Israel-Palestine, I’ve sought out Palestinian friends and interlocutors and listened carefully to their views. In this case, I did not.

I really wanted to speak to Israelis. In the US, I’ve cultivated conversations with Jews with whom I strongly disagree, both to listen and in hopes of changing their minds. Over the horrifying last two years, I’ve hoped for more conversations with Israelis, to explain why I believe Israel has committed genocide in Gaza and why I believe Jewish supremacy is fundamentally wrong. My motivation for giving the talk wasn’t financial; I didn’t receive an honorarium. I wanted to say certain things to an Israeli audience. Speaking at Tel Aviv University seemed to offer that chance.

I let my desire for that conversation override my solidarity with Palestinians, who in the face of ethnic cleansing, apartheid and genocide have asked the world boycott Israeli institutions that are complicit in their oppression. As Noura Erakat and others have pointed out, there are ways for me to talk to Israelis without violating BDS guidelines and undermining a collective effort against oppression. I could have had the exchange I desired while respecting a non-violent movement based on human rights and international law. Had I listened more to Palestinians, I would have realized that earlier.

It’s embarrassing to admit such a serious mistake. I dearly wish I had not made this one, which has caused particular harm because international pressure is crucial to ensuring Palestinian freedom. This was a failure of judgment. I am sorry.

He sounds like an abused wife apologizing to her husband after being beaten.

And so the transformation from "Zionist critic of Israel" to "non-Zionist critic of Israel" to "BDS supporter" is complete. From now on, Beinart now takes all of his instructions on how to act, what to write, what to do, what to say and what to think from the BDS movement.

He has finally outsourced his brain to terrorist lovers like Noura Erekat, who must approve everything he does in the future.

This is a role that Beinart now enthusiastically supports. He just wants to be loved by terrorists. (His magazine, Jewish Currents, refuses to condemn Hamas for October 7.)

But that isn't enough! Even after his groveling apology, the haters weren't mollified. TOI writes:

His apology, however, drew more backlash from leading anti-Israel activists. Nerdeen Kiswani, a leading anti-Zionist organizer in New York City, posted on X, “Peter consistently disrespects communities he claims to support, particularly Palestinians, and then apologizes for it.”

Ali Abunimah, founder of the Electronic Intifada website, wrote, “It’s hard not to see this as anything other than an exercise in damage control, to restore his marketability following the overwhelming backlash to his informed, conscious, willful decision to violate a clear picket line.”

This is the BDS playbook. As soon as you give them an inch, they berate you even more to browbeat you into total submission.

To the BDS crowd, Beinart isn't an articulate supporter of the Palestinian cause who should be applauded for telling Zionists they are wrong. He is just a Jew, and Jews are useless unless they act like dhimmis, begging for acceptance and protection from their Palestinian overlords and agreeing that Jews who think for themselves are just closet Zionists.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

You Can Have My Gun When You Pry It Out Of My Child’s Cold, Dead Hands by Sakmi Deek, Hamas fighter (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook and Substack pages.

Khan Yunis, November 27 - Hearing plenty of gab lately, about so-called "international bodies" agreeing to a plan to disarm our organization. Makes me laugh. No one's going to disarm us. You can have my weapons when you pry them out of the hands of my ten-year-old son.

You think some "multinational force" will take away our guns? No, you are all cowards who shrink from confronting our fierce warriors who will defy you, and you will do nothing, as usual, leaving it once again to the Israelis to do your work for you. Then, when they try, we will put the weapons in our children's hands and send them out to face the soldiers, who will defend themselves by shooting at our children, and we will cry that Israel is killing our children, and you will get angry again at Israel for killing children, and you will stop calling for our disarmament.

We have vast resources to prevent any such disarmament. Not only do I have a ten-year-old son from whom you must confiscate weapons, I have an eight-year-old daughter, a twelve-year-old daughter, and another son, fifteen - each of whom, and most likely all of whom, will carry those weapons. You will have to pry the guns from their cold, dead hands.

Oh, not just guns. Explosives, rocket-propelled grenades, knives, improvised mines, and even a crossbow or two, if I can remember where I put those. Rocks big enough to cause serious injury or death. Incendiary devices. Want them? Come get them. Make sure to shoot the children wielding them, or you're dead, too. Then we get to parade the images of dead children all over standard and social media, and ride the wave of outrage to further cement our hold on the Gaza Strip.

Did I mention clubs and pipes? We generally use those not against the Zionists, but against people in Gaza who refuse to pay us for food, shelter, medicine, and "protection," or who speak out against our way of doing things. But if you think you can replace our rule in Gaza, you'll have to pry those out of our children's cold, dead hands, as well. We start training them young - not just the well-documented classroom and kids'-TV indoctrination, but hands-on experience enforcing our authority in the territory.

Good luck with that, though, because, like the Israelis we killed on and after October 7, expect those kids to be booby-trapped.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

11/27 Links Pt2: The Founding Fathers and the Promised Land; Arnold Roth: Why is US justice for its victims of terror still thwarted?

From Ian:

Katie Pavlich: The Founding Fathers and the Promised Land

In the aftermath of World War II, the United States has supported the modern establishment of Israel as a democratic alliance and, more recently, as an economic partner. National security, intelligence sharing, technology development, scientific research, combating global Islamic terrorism and much more are also ongoing and shared interests.

The history of America and Israel didn’t start in 1948. It goes back to 1776, when American rebels looked to the Promised Land, its foundational story, and were inspired to reject the British Empire in pursuit of their own nation.

“We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved,” states the Declaration of Independence, signed by 56 men.

“And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

The Founding Fathers were men of God and believers in the Bible. This is evident in their speeches, writings, proposals and public prayers. Faith was their guiding force, principle and tool to win the American Revolution — against all odds.

“In 1776, a month after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams met to discuss the design of the Great Seal of the United States. Benjamin Franklin’s idea for the Great Seal wasn’t an eagle or the stars and stripes. We wanted the Seal to depict Moses leading the Children of Israel through the Red Sea, out of slavery and into freedom,” author and filmmaker David Kiern writes. “Jefferson countered, proposing imagery of the Hebrews in the desert, led by a pillar of fire, marching toward the Promised Land.”

After the Americans won their freedom, the credit for Israel’s divine inspiration continued.

“May the same wonder-working Deity, who long since delivered the Hebrews from their Egyptian oppressors, planted them in a promised land, whose providential agency has lately been conspicuous in establishing these United States as an independent nation, still continue to water them with the dews of heaven and make the inhabitants of every denomination participate in the temporal and spiritual blessings of that people whose God is Jehovah,” President Washington wrote to the Hebrew Congregation of Savannah in 1790.

Alan Baker: The 50th anniversary of the infamous UN ‘Zionism is Racism’ resolution

As stated by the then-U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Daniel Moynihan, “The United Nations is about to make antisemitism international law. The U.S. does not acknowledge, it will not abide by, it will never acquiesce in this infamous act. … A great evil has been loosed upon the world.”

The offensive determination equating Zionism with racism was subsequently formally revoked by General Assembly Resolution 46/86, adopted on Dec. 16, 1991, and supported by a majority of 111 states, with 25 Arab League, Muslim and African states opposing.

In introducing the revocation motion during his address to the 45th session of the United Nations General Assembly on Oct. 1, 1990, then-U.S. President George H.W. Bush stated, “NGA Resolution 3379, the so-called ‘Zionism is racism’ resolution, mocks this pledge and the principles upon which the United Nations was founded. And I call now for its repeal. Zionism is not a policy; it is the idea that led to the creation of a home for the Jewish people, to the State of Israel. And to equate Zionism with the intolerable sin of racism is to twist history and forget the terrible plight of Jews in World War II and, indeed, throughout history. To equate Zionism with racism is to reject Israel itself, a member of good standing of the United Nations. This body cannot claim to seek peace and at the same time challenge Israel’s right to exist. By repealing this resolution unconditionally, the United Nations will enhance its credibility and serve the cause of peace.”

On June 21, 2004, at a U.N. Conference on Antisemitism, then-Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan stated, “The actions of the United Nations on the issue of antisemitism have not always been worthy of its ideals. It is deplorable that the General Assembly adopted in 1975 a resolution which assimilated Zionism with racism and I welcome that it later came back on its position.”

But despite its revocation in 1991 and the 2004 condemnation by Annan, the Zionism-racism equation has remained engraved in the annals of the U.N. as an integral component of its operating mode. The damage had been done. The equation enabled the creation and continued permanent financing of an extensive bureaucratic apparatus within the U.N. system of bodies, committees, international organs and specialized agencies designed to amplify and encourage an ongoing Muslim, Arab and Palestinian campaign aimed at undermining Israel as a sovereign state member of the international community.

The resolution paved the way for the formalization of an artificially devised “status,” uniquely tailored for the Palestinian observer representation in the U.N., denominated as a “non-member-observer-state status.”

This anomaly has regrettably become a permanent fixture in the realities of the organization as well as in the present-day realities of the Middle East.

Under the false guise of “statehood,” this anomalous “status” granted to the Palestinians has subsequently been used as a pretext for manipulating a willing U.N. Secretariat and various U.N. bodies, including the International Court of Justice, individual states, and international and intergovernmental bodies, including the International Criminal Court, into acknowledging, recognizing and accepting into their membership a nonexistent Palestinian state. This, despite the nonexistence of any sovereign Palestinian entity and despite the fact that no binding or authoritative international instrument has ever acknowledged the existence of any sovereign Palestinian territory.

Such recognition clearly undermines, runs counter to and prejudges the intended outcome of the negotiations agreed to in the internationally recognized and internationally witnessed Oslo Accords, an integral component of the Middle East peace process, in which the Palestinian leadership committed to negotiating with Israel the issue of the permanent status of the territories.

Conclusion
The effects of the1975 Zionism-Racism resolution remain an indelible component of the realities in today’s Middle East. The subsequent apparent revocation of the offensive determination in that resolution did not diminish the long-term damage that it caused.

This damage still plagues the international community and, more significantly, the Jewish people and the State of Israel.

The genie cannot be returned to its bottle.

Gil Troy: Thanks to Zionism, We Won - and Will Continue Winning, while Teaching the West about Self-Defense, Self-Reliance, and Self-Respect

Americans are traditionally focused on their lives and, at best, domestic politics. That's why it's stunning to see how much coverage, fury, and focus there has been for two years on Israel in Gaza. Manipulative, well-funded networks have cultivated this Israel-obsession and Palestinian-romanticization. It is magnified mindlessly online.

America seems filled with laptop warriors who never fired a gun and cannot tell friend from foe, arrogantly making long-distance military calls about IDF strategy. Meanwhile, armchair moralists throw lightning bolts of condemnation at Israel, having ignored their own country's behavior in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Never forget: Hamas's Iranian-funded Oct. 7 massacre imposed this existential war for survival on Israel. Oct. 7 marks the latest, bloodiest, chapter in Palestinian exterminationists' decades-long war against Zionism. Read their charters, speeches, and sermons. They've framed their "struggle" as an all-or-nothing fight to eliminate the "Zionist entity." They're the ones who repeatedly rejected compromise since the 1940s, and keep improvising various ways to kill Jews.

Zionism resets the conversation that puts Israel's supporters in a defensive crouch. It transcends the defensiveness, refuting the accusations in deeds not words, with joy not anguish, victories not defeatism. It accentuates the eternals: identity, history, community, continuity, survival. Zionism takes Israel off probation, celebrating Jews' historic commitment to one another, our people, state and land - our intertwined fate.

Identity Zionism roots Jews in a centrifugal reality spinning around our tradition, our land, our people, our state. That superpower resists modern Western culture's forces, spinning toward fragmented affinities, and thereby undermining loyalties to others, to the collective.

11/27 Links Pt1: Did Israel Win the War in Gaza?; The revelations about what the Gaza hostages suffered are the most painful yet; How Israel captured the Gaza doctor who handled Hadar Goldin’s body

From Ian:

Did Israel Win the War in Gaza?

One of Israel's objectives in Gaza is toppling Hamas's rule and dismantling its military capabilities. Militarily, Hamas is no longer the "terrorist army" it was before Oct. 7, 2023. Its commanders have been killed, its battalions dismantled, and organizational structure shattered. It has no functioning headquarters, special forces, or weapons-production infrastructure, and no coherent chain of command. Its fighters operate as small, uncoordinated guerrilla cells focused primarily on survival.

Hamas now holds roughly 10% of its prewar rocket arsenal. Its estimated 17,000 fighters, mostly new and inexperienced, share approximately 10,000 rifles. The threat today differs dramatically from that of Oct. 6.

Moreover, Hamas's condition is described as one of defeat by many Gaza residents and by prominent Palestinian opinion leaders. However, a decisive defeat requires sustained mechanisms to prevent Hamas's recovery. This means eliminating the organization's ability to recruit, rebuild, and reenter the fighting.

Eliminating Hamas's governing capacity requires a competing authority capable of assuming control. Currently, Hamas still controls about half of Gaza's territory and exerts influence over an even larger portion of the population.

By many measures, Israel has defeated Hamas in Gaza. However, it is too early to assess the durability of the change. Israel's national defense posture is nonetheless significantly improved compared to the prewar period.

Blocking anti-Israel forces in Gaza: Why Indonesia’s ‘peacekeepers’ must stay home - opinion

Recent news stories have revealed that Indonesia may send some 20,000 soldiers – troops it claims have been trained to be peacekeepers – to Gaza. On paper, this might look like a contribution to regional stability. However, for the United States and for Israel, allowing Indonesian soldiers to deploy in Gaza would be a strategic mistake.

Indonesia does not recognize Israel, has never had diplomatic relations with Israel, and has consistently voted against Israel at the United Nations. The proposed deployment is not in the best interest of either the United States or Israel. The 20,000 Indonesian soldiers who have been supposedly trained to be peacekeepers in Gaza should stay home in Indonesia.

Indonesia’s government has publicly reaffirmed that there is no official relationship with Israel, and this position has remained unchanged for decades. Despite rare and unofficial contacts, Jakarta maintains a foreign-policy posture rooted in rejecting Israel’s legitimacy. It also has no embassy in Israel. This lack of diplomatic relations is not a technicality; it is a deliberate Indonesian policy that signals national opposition to Israel’s existence.

Indonesia diplomatically against Israel
In consistently voting against Jerusalem at the UN, often enthusiastically, Jakarta has supported resolutions condemning Israel for what it describes as an “unlawful occupation” of Palestinian territory. Indonesian officials publicly welcome UN resolutions calling for a full Israeli withdrawal and regularly state that Israel has no legitimate sovereignty in Palestinian-populated areas.

Indonesia has also condemned Knesset votes, reinforcing its long-standing pattern of hostility. These are not the votes or statements of a neutral nation capable of acting as an even-handed peacekeeping presence; they are the actions of a state that aligns diplomatically against Israel over and over again.

This all really matters when discussing the possible deployment of Indonesian troops into Gaza. Embedding soldiers from a country that refuses to recognize Israel, has no diplomatic ties with Israel, and consistently backs resolutions targeting Israel’s legitimacy introduces serious risks.

Peacekeepers must be trusted by all sides if they are to function effectively. Given Indonesia’s history, Israel cannot reasonably be expected to view these troops as neutral actors. Nor should the United States do so.

Jonathan Sacerdoti: The revelations about what the Gaza hostages suffered are the most painful yet

The Israeli hostages recently freed from Gaza have begun to speak, and among the new revelations is that some were subjected to sexual assault and degradation, including male hostages. They describe being stripped, groped, violated, and threatened at gunpoint. The scale and cruelty of what they endured should have triggered sustained, front-page attention in the UK, not least on the BBC. But it has not.

The testimonies began surfacing in recent weeks. Rom Braslavsky, seized by Palestinian Islamic Jihad while recovering the bodies of murdered women at the Nova music festival, described being stripped naked and left that way for days. ‘They took all my clothes. Underwear too. Everything. They tied me up from my… while I was completely naked. I was torn apart, starving, naked. I said to God: take me out of this already.’ His captivity lasted 738 days. ‘It was sexual violence, and its main purpose was to humiliate me,’ he said. ‘The goal was to crush my dignity. And that’s exactly what he did.’

Guy Gilboa Dalal, 22, was abducted by Hamas with a friend after escaping gunfire at Nova. He was tied, blindfolded, beaten, and later taken into a guard’s room. ‘I was on a chair with my eyes covered,’ he said, as his sadistic torturer asked him: ‘You haven’t seen girls in a long time, right? Want to watch porn? Want me and you to make a porn film?… He touched me all over my body… kissed my neck, kissed my back.’ A gun was pressed to his head, a knife to his throat. ‘He said that if I told anyone, he would kill me.’ Days later, the same guard assaulted him again. ‘He pulled down my trousers… stood behind me and rubbed his genitals on my anus for some minutes.’ Guy stood frozen. ‘I was terrified this would become something regular, worse each time – more violent, more invasive.’

Israel has now confirmed that roughly half of the returned hostages reported some form of sexual abuse. The methods include forced nudity, sexualised torture, coercive touching, and threats of rape. Both women and men were targeted. The full extent of this abuse has only recently started coming to light.

Everyone is teaching the Holocaust wrong

There has been an uproar over comments by Sarah Hurwitz at the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America this month. As JTA reports:

“Holocaust education is absolutely essential,” she said. “But I think it may be confusing some of our young people about antisemitism, because they learn about big, strong Nazis hurting weak, emaciated Jews, and they think, ‘Oh, antisemitism is like anti-black racism, right? Powerful white people against powerless black people.’ So when on Tiktok, all day long, they see powerful Israelis hurting weak, skinny Palestinians, it’s not surprising that they think, ‘Oh, I know the lesson of the Holocaust is you fight Israel. You fight the big, powerful people hurting the weak people.’”

Immediately the "progressive" Left attacked her, saying that she was justifying Gaza "genocide" and other nonsense.

Hurwitz is correct. Holocaust education falls into a number of buckets, all of which are problematic for one reason or another. Some make it into a vapid lesson on generalized tolerance. Others use it as a tool to compare the Holocaust with other genocides, without noting the particular horrors that make it unique. Some concentrate on Jewish victimhood, making Jews passive characters in the only narrative they are confutable teaching, "oppressor vs. oppressed." Yet others concentrate on democracy and anti-authoritarianism, implying that something like this could never happen here. All the while, some Jewish groups think that Holocaust education is some sort of magic bullet to fight today's antisemitism.

Everyone is ignoring the real lesson of the Holocaust - how we cannot be complacent, because we can also fall into the same mindset that the Germans did. Some of the most cultured, educated and technologically advanced people in the world descended into supporting the horrors of genocide in less than a decade. How could this happen, and how can we ensure it never happens again?

This is a lesson in ethics, a topic that public education seems allergic to for fear of offending someone. But without a strong ethical backbone, any Holocaust curriculum is not going to accomplish what it is supposed to. And there are basic ethical imperatives that everyone should be able to agree upon.

This is exactly where the philosophy I have been developing, Derechology, shows its value. Together with my Derechology AI GPT, I came up with a sample curriculum that makes the Holocaust relevant to today. It doesn't shy away from hard questions - it is meant to make students uncomfortable in an age-appropriate way.

In the derechological curriculum, students don't just learn about the Holocaust: they are trained to think ethically:

They learn to identify moral collapse through values like Tzelem Elokim (the sacred image in every person), Pikuach Nefesh (life trumps ideology), and Anavah (moral humility).
They study how professions failed—medicine, law, academia—and how moral distance allowed people to commit atrocities while feeling innocent.
They engage in Moral Audit Projects—applying Holocaust ethics to modern issues: medical ethics, refugee policy, social media algorithms, and more.
They reflect on moral resilience—what Jewish tradition preserved under annihilation, and how spiritual courage outlasted empire.

The sample curriculum spans eight modules. Here’s a taste:

Ground Zero of Moral Collapse — This module begins with the question of how a civilized society—full of artists, scientists, and thinkers—could become a machine of genocide. Students are introduced to key ethical values and the idea of structural moral failure. The focus is not on Jews or Nazis yet, but on the disappearance of override values like human dignity and mutual responsibility under the guise of "science "and "progress." Racial theories were accepted as scientific fact by everyone in the early 20th century. Are there any current social theories being taught today that might be disproven tomorrow?

How Antisemitism Functions — Antisemitism is not just another form of hate; it’s a diagnostic tool for system failure. Students learn how antisemitism morphs across ideologies and Jews are blamed for contradictory crimes. They will examine how antisemitic ideas infiltrated German law, theology, education, and popular culture, becoming the emotional and ideological engine of genocide. Students also examine how tropes from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion—accusations of secret Jewish power, global manipulation, and dual loyalty—have not disappeared but adapted to modern political language. Conspiracy theories portraying Jews as both omnipotent and subversive remain widespread across ideological spectrums. The module challenges students to understand how these narratives persist even when explicitly disavowed, and how they distort ethical reasoning. This module challenges students to recognize similar rhetorical and structural patterns in contemporary discourse.

Collapse of the Professions — Doctors, lawyers, engineers, and professors were not exceptions to Nazism: they were instruments of it. This module shows how professional codes eroded when they aligned with racial ideology and state power. Medical ethics books justified extermination of "subhumans." Students learn how moral collapse isn’t chaotic - it can be planned, bureaucratic, credentialed, and efficient.

Moral Arrogance — What happens when humility is removed from the ethical system? This module introduces Anavah—moral humility—as a structural necessity. Nazis didn't think of themselves as monsters - they were in the forefront of animal ethics while justifying the murder of millions of humans. Students explore how Nazi ideology elevated certainty, hierarchy, and dehumanization over ethical restraint, creating a worldview where genocide felt like progress.

The Machinery of Death — The Holocaust was a technological, administrative, and logistical operation as much as it was ideological. Students learn about the train systems, data tracking, and bureaucratic layers that allowed millions to die while most participants believed they were “just doing their jobs.” The concept of “moral distance” helps explain how ordinary people justified extraordinary evil. Some resisted but the vast majority did not, thinking that their parts in the genocide were too inconsequential to matter.

Mass Consent: The Storytelling of Genocide — This module explores how the Nazis used propaganda to normalize the abnormal. Students analyze films, speeches, posters, and school materials that reframed genocide as moral duty and racial hygiene. They study classic persuasion techniques—repetition, euphemism, scapegoating, visual symbolism—and compare them to how modern media and social platforms and advertising shape narratives today. The goal is to train students to detect ethical hijacking before it becomes cultural collapse.

Jewish Ethical and Physical Resistance — Against totalitarian power, Jews didn’t just survive—they preserved structure. Students learn about the Jews who fought in the Warsaw Ghetto and in partisan forces. But beyond that, they embraced spiritual resistance: holiday observance, Torah study, mutual aid, even ethical debates in camps. This is framed not as passive suffering but as the fierce refusal to let moral structure die even when they had no control over any other aspect of their lives.

Teshuva Epochs — After the Shoah, some systems tried to reckon with their collapse. Students examine examples of postwar repentance: Christian theological shifts, German reparations, the Geneva Conventions, and the moral rebirth of Israel. The challenge here is to distinguish real teshuva (ethical return) from performative gestures ("we're sorry you were offended.") it is not about guilt, but about a true change in one's derech (moral path.)

Moral Audit Project — In the capstone module, students apply Holocaust ethics to contemporary moral dilemmas. They identify a system where human dignity is at risk, run a derechological analysis, and design an override mechanism. This turns memory into action—and trains moral architects, not just historians.

Students come away not just with knowledge, but with conscience - and tools that would help them navigate real life.

They learn that remembering isn’t enough. “Never Again” means never again on your watch. The Holocaust is not a Jewish story with universal lessons—it is a universal story revealed through the unique Jewish experience.

This is only one version of the curriculum I've developed. There are many other subtopics and ethical entry points into the Holocaust that could be explored. I believe specific vignettes are especially effective—moments students can visualize and emotionally process. For example, while Nazi death camp commandants could spend their evenings listening to music and enjoying a hearty meal with their families after a day of mass murder, Jewish prisoners would sometimes share a single potato peel found in the dirt as if it were treasure. One dinner table preserved privilege; the other preserved dignity.

This curriculum doesn’t teach certainty. It teaches the humility to recognize that you might be wrong and the courage to act before it’s too late.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

Today's Houthi antisemitism

According to surveys, the most antisemitic places on the planet are the Palestinian territories (93% holding antisemitic views), Iraq (92% and then Yemen (88%), followed closely by Libya, Algeria, Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt.

But in the media Yemen still takes first place. Other Arab countries pretend to be only against Zionism and not Jews, so their media at least makes an attempt to pretend not to be antisemitic. But the Houthis proudly say "Damn the Jews" in their slogan and flag, they have no compunctions about being honest in their hate for Jews.

Which is actually refreshing. We know that the overwhelming majority hate Jews, they know they hate Jews, why pretend otherwise? At least the Houthis are honest.

Today's example in the Al Thawrah newspaper has a columnist railing against Arab countries who have relations with Israel. Not because they are Zionists but because they are Jews. (And Christians are no better.)

The martyred leader, Sayyid Hussein bin Badr al-Din al-Houthi—may God be pleased with him—spoke about the danger posed by the Jews, their cunning, malice, and crimes against God Almighty and against the rights of all humanity, especially Arabs and Muslims.

...Everyone ignored the teachings of the Holy Quran and rushed greedily to achieve what they call peace, while witnessing the crimes of the Jews and Christians and their betrayal every time they conclude a covenant or pact with the Muslims; their pursuit stems from false greed whose futility and loss they recognize, but they delude themselves with the possibility of peace.

The Jews' characteristics and nature include cunning and deception, and the Quran confirms that. If the Muslims returned to the Quran, they would know the truth about these criminals, which is what the martyred leader—may God have mercy on him and dwell him in the spacious gardens of Paradise—called for: "Those who delude themselves that they can obtain something from the Jews through negotiation do not know them and do not understand the truths of the Holy Quran, which said about them: 'Or do they have a share in the kingdom, so they do not give the people a naqīran?' [Quran 4:53]. And the solution with them is not through negotiation but through resistance, which they want to eliminate."

What the martyred leader said is a preemptive vision that reveals to the nation the true nature of the Jews, based on the Holy Quran. It is a call to adhere to the truths of the Quran, which clarifies the crimes of these people who have incurred God's wrath and gone astray, violating the rights of God Almighty and the rights of all humanity. If they were to return to the Holy Quran, they would know that these people cannot give us anything of their own accord, and that we must take our rights and liberate our homelands from them through resistance, not negotiations, because they will not give anything, not even the smallest thing.

There you go, Israel will never give up an inch of land. That's why it left Gaza, withdrew from the Sinai and from southern Lebanon.

I often wonder how much of this is stupidity and how much is just straight out lying. And whether it makes a difference.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

Is Thanksgiving based on the Jewish festival of Sukkot?

Here is an article from the Dodge County Republican (Minnesota) from Nov 27, 1874:

Throughout much of the 19th and early 20th centuries, American newspapers often tied Thanksgiving to the Jewish holiday of Sukkot ("Feast of Tabernacles.")

The connection seems obvious - the Pilgrims were religious and modeled themselves as the Jews of the New World, and Sukkot is a harvest festival.

But after World War II, those articles all but disappeared in annual descriptions of Thanksgiving. Why the change?

It seems that scholars could not find any evidence that the Pilgrims themselves ever associated that first Thanksgiving in 1621 with the Jewish festival. No one made that connection until Unitarian minister Rev. Alexander Young wrote about it in 1841. None of the American proclamations of the festival mention the Bible.

Nevertheless, the claim is plausible, if not documented. The Jews who went on pilgrimage festivals would give the voluntary thanks-offering (todah) when they reached the Temple, and the English translation of the Bible uses the word "thanksgiving" for this.

So the evidence is thin that American Thanksgiving is based on Sukkot. But that doesn't mean that Jews shouldn't give thanks. As the American Israelite wrote on Thanksgiving 1920:

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

11/26 Links Pt2: Palestine 36 is an insult to history; John Cleese apologises for sharing antisemitic posts; Notorious ‘Jewish supremacy’ rant doctor FINALLY has medical licence suspended

From Ian:

Palestine 36 is an insult to history

Palestine 36 is a new movie about Arab resistance to colonialism in British-governed Palestine in the late 1930s. It is a moving and eye-catching story, but it suffers from a big problem: it is not true.

Annemarie Jacir’s film looks the part, with its mix of beautifully realised life in the hill villages, Haifa townscapes and jazz-age cocktail parties. It is replete with neat production values, paid for with cash from BBC Films and the British Film Institute.

The performances from Karim Daoud Anaya, as young, radicalised journalist Yusuf, and Yafa Bakri, playing a widow called Rabab, are moving. Jeremy Irons, who plays British high commissioner Arthur Wauchope, and Robert Aramayo, as British intelligence officer Orde Wingate, are hiss-worthy music-hall villains.

The account of the conflict on which the movie is based – the events of 1936 to 1939 – is far less convincing. Jacir takes it as read that the British are working on behalf of the Jewish settlers, who are depicted as vicious and rapacious ‘colonisers’. Yet the truth about what is known as the Great Revolt is that the leaders of the Palestinian Arabs were more opposed to Jews than they were to British imperialism – indeed, they said straight-forwardly that they would have supported Britain if only it would stop Jewish immigration to Mandate Palestine.

Throughout the film, it is the Jews who are portrayed as the problem, while Britain is blamed for taking their side. In one scene, Rabab’s daughter, Afra, looks on at the Jewish women building their settlement and asks why they have come. Her mother replies ‘their countries don’t want them… I don’t know why.’

In the film, Jews are shown being allocated land by the British that was confiscated from Arabs. But that was not British policy. Whatever land Jews had in 1936, they had bought from Arab owners. ‘Palestine is not for sale’, say protesters in the movie. But the truth is that it was, and for a decent profit, too, for Arab landowners.

John Cleese apologises to Jewish News for sharing antisemitic posts – vows free Israel show

John Cleese has issued a fulsome apology to Jewish News for inadvertently sharing false and antisemitic content online – as he reiterated his pledge to make good on his pledge to perform again in Israel.

In an exclusive hour-long interview, the 86-year-old comedy icon said he was “extremely sorry” for reposting material he later discovered had been fabricated, including a false quote attributed to former Israeli ambassador Tzipi Hotovely and another suggesting Israel “controls global finance.

“I didn’t check them properly,” he said. “I couldn’t believe some of them had been completely invented. It was a mistake.”

The posts provoked widespread anger among Israelis and British Jews and came ahead of Cleese’s cancellation of three sold-out shows scheduled in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem between 26 November and 1 December.

Initial statements cited “security concerns,” while online speculation claimed he feared BDS pressure.

Cleese said the decision stemmed from anxiety rather than politics. “I was dreading it weeks before the posts,” he said. “I thought someone would ask me something political, and if I didn’t say the right thing it would be unpleasant for the rest of the tour.”

Asked whether he feared for his safety, he replied: “I think there was always a security element… but I didn’t know.”

The Fawlty Towers and Monty Python star admitted to being “naïve” about how easily posts can be manipulated and said he now intends to stop commenting on Israel online. “I don’t understand the internet,” he said. “People create things and don’t care that they can be disproved.”

Cleese condemned Hamas as “the nastiest of all terrorist organisations” and stood firmly by Israel’s right to defend itself, while expressing concern about some actions of the Israeli government. He also voiced concern about record levels of antisemitism in the UK, saying he was deeply saddened by reports from Jewish friends who told him how unsafe they now feel.

Revealed: Police quizzed wrongfully arrested Jewish mother over her faith

A wrongfully arrested mother was interrogated by police about her Jewish faith and involvement in a Holocaust Memorial Day event at her daughter’s school, the JC can reveal.

Citing a claim of “harassment” against her, an officer asked Rosalind Levine, 47, about emails she had sent her daughter’s school in which she offered to help arrange for Holocaust survivors to address pupils and requested the removal of her child from Christian prayer.

Levine and her partner, Maxie Allen, 50, received a payout from Hertfordshire Police earlier this month after the force admitted they had been wrong to send six officers to arrest the couple at their Borehamwood family home in January over complaints the pair had made about their daughter’s school.

CCTV footage captured the uniformed officers hauling the parents away as their three-year-old, Francesca, cried.

Documents seen by the JC now suggest Cowley Hill Primary School cited Levine’s emails relating to her Jewish faith, her Israeli family and her desire to promote Shoah education as part of a harassment report.

Levine said it felt like she had “slipped into an alternative reality” when she was forced to explain her religious rights from inside a police cell. “I felt I was in a weird nightmare,” she told the JC.

Shadow education secretary Laura Trott, said: “The family’s Jewish faith was entirely irrelevant, and questioning them about it was unacceptable. Freedom of religion is a cornerstone of our democracy, and any attempt to threaten it must be fought absolutely.”

Shadow DfE equalities minister Claire Coutinho called on Hertfordshire Constabulary “to come clean” on why Levine was questioned about her religion.

“This appears to be part of a worrying trend of Jewish people being asked about their religion in police interviews in a way that other groups wouldn’t be,” Coutinho said.

Former Attorney General Sir Michael Ellis added: “The appalling way these parents have been treated exemplifies the dire state of British policing at the moment.”

The couple were arrested on suspicion of harassment, malicious communications and causing a nuisance on school property – allegations later dismissed as baseless.

11/26 Links Pt1: Body of hostage Dror Or returned to Israel; Does it matter that they’re lying about Israel?; Minister Strock: ‘Time to end the Oslo illusion’

From Ian:

Jonathan Tobin: Does it matter that they’re lying about Israel?

A curious thing happened last week in Israel. More than 100 military officers from 20 countries attended an international conference hosted by the Israel Defense Forces. Among them were representatives from countries that had falsely accused the Jewish state of committing war crimes, deliberate starvation or even genocide in Gaza during the war with Hamas that followed the Palestinian terrorist attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

While there, they visited the sites of the Oct. 7 massacres and attended briefings about the challenges presented by urban warfare as well as discussions of how the IDF used AI, drones, artillery and medical services for the wounded.

Some nations, like the United Kingdom, whose left-wing government continues in its vitriolic demonization of the Jewish state and has passively accepted the growing mainstreaming of antisemitism in British society, boycotted the event. But others who were just as vociferous in backing up the claims that what Israel had done in Gaza was uniquely awful, such as France and Canada, showed up alongside representatives from friendlier countries like the United States, the Czech Republic and Hungary.

They were accompanied by officers from Germany, Finland, India, Greece, Cyprus, Poland, Austria, Estonia, Japan, Morocco, Romania, Serbia and Slovakia. Many have either joined in the international community’s Israel-bashing, recognized “Palestine” as an independent, albeit still non-existent, country or chose not to stand with Israel during the past two years as it fought for its life against genocidal Islamist terrorists.

They don’t really believe the lies
That Israel has much to teach the world about the use of high-tech and intelligence in warfare, added to its expertise in avoiding civilian casualties and how to deal with emergencies, is nothing new. The Israelis have been sharing their knowledge in these and other topics with other nations for decades. So, in that sense, the military conference wasn’t all that newsworthy.

But it matters because it shows that many of those countries that tacitly or openly endorsed the blood libels against Israel during the course of the war that, at least temporarily, concluded with the ceasefire-hostage release deal brokered by the United States in October, don’t really believe the accusations. If they did, they wouldn’t have been there or subsequently, members of their delegations would have spoken about alleged links between Israeli military tactics and the claims of mass murder.

‘Wrong from the very beginning,’ Hungarian minister says of EU Israel policy

Europe has shifted on Israel. Since Oct. 7, 12 European countries, including the United Kingdom, France and Spain, have recognized a Palestinian state and now routinely vote against the Jewish state at the United Nations.

One country bucking that European trend is Hungary, which joins the United States and Argentina as among the only countries to vote with Israel consistently at the United Nations. Hungary is also deemed sufficiently safe for Jewish and Israeli institutions that it now hosts many of the Israeli national soccer team’s home games, even as one Israeli club has been banned from playing in the United Kingdom.

JNS sat down on Nov. 21 with János Bóka, the Hungarian minister for European affairs and its prime ministerial envoy to combat antisemitism, to discuss what sets his country apart.

“I believe that the European position has been wrong from the very beginning,” Bóka told JNS, of the bloc’s position on Israel. “This short sighted approach has tremendously contributed to the European Union being sidelined in the Middle East peace process in general.”

“It’s not a coincidence that the European Union is not at the table where things are decided. It’s not a coincidence that the European Union is not able to influence the political agenda anymore in the Middle East,” he said.

“This is a natural consequence of the wrong policy choices that were made,” he added. “We don’t want to contribute to further wrong choices being made on behalf of the European Union.”

Patel praises Netanyahu after ‘great meeting’ on Israel visit

Shadow Foreign Secretary Priti Patel has met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for discussions designed to portray the Conservative Party as a friend and ally of the Jewish state.

Photographed alongside the Israeli PM, Patel wrote on X:”A great meeting with my friend Benjamin Netanyahu and a discussion about how we must stand together to fight for the freedoms and values our countries are founded on.

“Israel is a beacon of democracy and freedom in the Middle East and our friend and ally. ”

In a follow-up video posted on social media, Patel, a strong supporter of the Conservative Friends of Israel organisation, stressed the long-standing history of information sharing between the UK and Israel, especially in security, defense, and trade, adding, “It’s in Britain’s interests to strengthen this relationship.”

Meeting with survivors, hostages, and their families from the October 7 attack during her visit, Patel also said:”Since these horrific terrorist attacks, Israel has seen prolonged attacks from Iranian-backed Hamas-Hezbollah and the Houthis.

“These are groups that oppose the values that we hold, democracy, freedom, and the right to expression.

“Their actions have brought immense suffering to countless people.

“We hope the 20-point police plan will lay the foundations for sustained peace in the region.

“But of course, this can only work if allies, including the United Kingdom, come together to dismantle the terrorist infrastructure in Gaza, to eliminate Hamas, and to tackle the ongoing threats from Iran to deliver much-needed peace and stability.”