Here is a recent academic paper abstract published in the British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies:
The sea symbolism and the Palestinians’ traumatic memories of departure, displacement and death
Wael J. Salam & Ghassan Aburqayeq
Received 10 Mar 2025, Accepted 11 Nov 2025, Published online: 15 Dec 2025
Cite this article https://doi.org/10.1080/13530194.2025.2602436
ABSTRACT
This article examines the sea as a literal and metaphorical emblem of Palestinian trauma and the imperative not to forget the individual and collective memories of flight and homelessness in the works of two Palestinian writers, Ghassan Kanafani and Mahmoud Darwish. As eyewitnesses to cataclysmic events, including the Nakba or the 1948 Catastrophe of the Palestinians’ expulsion, Kanafani and Darwish repeatedly represent the sea as a port of entry for European Jewish settlers of the Palestinian land and a port of deportation for Palestinians, rendering this symbolism a site of mourning, death, departure and identity formation. Kanafani and Darwish creatively respond to the occupation of their homeland by hammering home the bleak reality of settler colonialism. They associate the sea with the Palestinians’ ongoing trauma of expulsion and flight—a dissident memory that, while traumatic, preserves the Palestinian right to resist, exist, and return to their homeland.
The sea was indeed a motif in 1948 - but it was an Arab motif about throwing the Jews into the sea!
I've collected several contemporaneous articles about how the Arabs made that threat to the Jews as early as this AP dispatch from December 19, 1947:
An AP analysis from February 8, 1948, uses quotation marks for the phrase referring to Arab leaders in 1947:
This article from the News York Daily News in April 1948 quotes Fawzi al Kaukji directly making that threat:
It is quite untrue to suggest that we have let the Arabs down or failed in any obligations towards them. We did not urge them to intervene by force in Palestine, nor did we promise them support if they did so. They went in of their own accord, in most cases without telling us beforehand. Very small measure of military successes which they achieved shows that their forces, while capable perhaps of occupying friendly territory, were not prepared for and incapable of undertaking major military operations, which would have been necessary to achieve the announced object of the Arab states, namely to drive the Jews into the sea.
And this rhetoric didn't end in 1948 - here is an Egyptian propaganda poster from 1967 literally called "Throw the Jews Into the Sea:"
To Arabs before the 1967 war, the sea didn't symbolize defeat - it symbolized impending victory over the Jews.
I cannot see the full paper but based on the footnotes it is apparent that this issue isn't even addressed in the article.
This paper is an inversion of reality.
In fact, I cannot find a single academic article about the "drive the Jews into the sea" phrase that was used so often in 1948 and afterwards. I researched it here and here and Yisrael Medad did here.
Which brings up another problem in academia: there are hundreds of papers analyzing the most peripheral angles of the Palestinian experience but relatively few on Israel, and those few are concentrated in a very few Israel-centric journals while the anti-Israel papers are spread over dozens of journals on disparate topics. There is a feedback loop - there's no demand for papers describing Israelis charitably so none are written.
Once again, academia is being used for propaganda and erasing history, not real research.
What happened at AmFest was widely described as a “civil war on the Right.” That description might capture the heat, but not the substance.
What actually played out was different moral frameworks colliding on the same stage, each assuming the others were playing the same game, when they are on different playing fields.
The clash between Ben Shapiro and Steve Bannon made this unusually clear.
Shapiro’s speech called out Tucker Carlson and other right-wing media personalities, but the substance of his speech was about duty. At the climax, he spoke about obligations - what people with microphones owe their audiences, and what audiences owe themselves. He spoke about truth, about principle over personal feeling, about responsibility for consequences, about evidence rather than insinuation, and about the obligation to offer real solutions rather than theatrical outrage. He ended where he began: with truth, insisting that victory built on anything else is hollow.
It was a striking moment because it sounded almost old-fashioned. Shapiro was not trying to define who belongs to a movement, as he was accused of. He was trying to define what makes political speech legitimate in the first place.
Bannon’s response came from a different universe. He did not engage Shapiro’s argument at all. Instead, he shifted the frame entirely. This was not, he said, about principles. It was about power, loyalty, and who represents MAGA and who does not. Shapiro, in this telling, was disqualified not because his claims were false, but because his allegiance was suspect. This makes him, in Bannon's words, a "cancer."
One side is asking, “Is this true, responsible, and principled?” The other is asking, “Are you with us or against us?”
Whatever one thinks of Shapiro, his argument fits squarely within the classic conservative tradition. That tradition has always been suspicious of mass passions and concentrated power, including power exercised by one’s own side. Edmund Burke warned that a representative who sacrifices judgment to popular opinion betrays his duty. Russell Kirk described conservatism not as a rigid ideology but as a way of seeing - one that requires discernment. William F. Buckley Jr. defined the conservative role as “Standing athwart history, yelling 'Stop'.”
That worldview assumes that thinking critically, demanding evidence, and resisting tribal pressure are virtues. Loyalty is not the highest good; judgment is.
Bannon and his allies, by contrast, are not articulating classic conservatism at all. They are advancing a newer far-Right vision centered on identity and power. In this framework, America is not simply a constitutional nation with a shared civic inheritance. It is a civilizational project with a defined Christian cultural and religious core. Politics becomes boundary enforcement. Dissent, even principled dissent, becomes a threat to be neutralized rather than an argument to be answered.
And Jews are not treated as full equals in a movement based on making America Christian. When Bannon said, "This is about power politics and what Charlie Kirk believed in to the core of his being—that America makes decisions for America, and Americans make decisions for America," he's implying that Shapiro is not qualified to be part of such decisions.
Here is the irony: despite the rhetoric, neither of these positions actually represents MAGA as practiced by Donald Trump.
Trump’s MAGA was never classic conservatism, but it was also never simple isolationism or civilizational purity. It is transactional. Trump cares about leverage, credibility, and outcomes. He opposes endless wars not because force is always wrong, but because wars without leverage, objectives, or exit conditions are bad deals. When he makes threats, he expects them to be believed.
That is why the reaction from many self-described MAGA supporters to the U.S. strike on Iranian nuclear facilities was so revealing. The objections were framed in moral language - “we don’t want to start an endless war” - but they ignored the actual logic Trump had articulated for years. Iran’s nuclear program was central. Red lines were drawn. A deadline was announced. Credibility was explicitly on the line. Following through was not a deviation from MAGA logic; it was the logic.
And in fact, the feared escalation did not occur. Deterrence worked. Which only sharpened the question: if even successful enforcement is condemned as illegitimate, then what exactly is being conserved?
The major break between classic conservatism and the other two is that the former is skeptical of unbridled power and unlimited loyalty while MAGA and the Christian identity Right demand them.
This is why everyone now seems to be talking past everyone else. They are starting from entirely different assumptions about what politics is for. Classic conservatism asks whether speech is true and responsible. MAGA asks whether actions preserve leverage and credibility. The Christian-civilizational “America Only” Right asks whether an action serves identity preservation and internal cohesion.
They use the same slogans, but they are not answering the same questions.
The open question is not which side won a particular exchange. It is which of these moral frameworks will define the future of the Republican Party - and what happens to those whose framework loses. Movements built on loyalty abandon principles. Movements built on identity exclude those who don't fit. Movements built on power without constraint become autocratic. Yet those built on principles might not win elections in today's hyper-partisan environment.
The fracture is already there. The only question now is whether anyone is willing to name it honestly.
Only eight years later, Shukairy would change his tune as the first head of the PLO:
This was of course the conference where the PLO issued its first charter - the one that said the borders of "Palestine" excluded the West Bank and Gaza.
Shukairy is in the light colored coat; the poster behind him separates "Palestine" from the other lands it was not claiming with the word "We Shall Return" in Arabic.
At any rate, when Shuairy said that Israel was just southern Palestine in1956, Abba Eban and his diplomatic team responded with their usual wit:
I used to scoff when some American Jews told opinion surveys that antisemitism in the U.S. was "a very serious problem." I thought Jews had been blessed in America with a degree of tolerance and goodwill virtually unparalleled. America's story was rooted in Judeo-Christian soil. The founders of the American republic believed that they, like the Israelites of old, had been led to a Promised Land.
Jews seemed familiar - the original protagonists in the very story the founders believed they were continuing. Jews were embraced as heirs to the scriptures Americans revered. George Washington in his famous 1790 letter to the Jewish community of Newport, R.I., said that in America, every Jew would live safely "and there shall be none to make him afraid."
But the golden age has been replaced by a grim new reality in which antisemitism is being normalized with terrifying speed. Today, American synagogues and Jewish schools must spend a fortune on security. Jewish-owned businesses are targeted by antisemitic mobs, podcasters with huge followings platform Holocaust deniers, and social media is awash in anti-Jewish venom.
Rev. Daniel Joslyn-Siemiatkoski, an Episcopal priest and director of the Center for Christian-Jewish Learning at Boston College, noted the difference between synagogues with rigorous security protocols and nearby churches where people were free to walk in and out of the open doors. "Why are we Americans willing to live like this? Why are Christians, who worship Jesus the Jew, willing to stand for this? Why do we stand by as Jews in our communities are threatened by antisemitic graffiti, as Jewish children are bullied in their schools, and as more and more Jews feel they must hide their Jewish identity for fear of harassment - or worse?"
"Jesus lived as a Jew and taught as one. The gospels recount that one of the first acts of his public ministry was to teach in his home synagogue. If Jesus were to reappear today, what would he make of armed guards and locked doors at the entrance of U.S. synagogues?... Antisemitism threatens all of us. Rarely do those who target Jews with persecution, threats, or violence stop there. They come for others....Jesus would not keep silent at the sight of Jewish worshipers who need armed guards to pray in safety."
Indeed, most polls show that 60% of Democrats favor the Palestinians over the Israelis. Translated, that means they prefer a terrorist autocracy over a Western liberal constitutional government.
The right used to be a unified corrective to left-wing antisemitism. It still polls nearly 70% in favor of Israel.
For a while longer, it is far more likely to condemn antisemitic violence than the left.
But recently, its own base, in varying degrees, has come full circle and joined the left in its distaste for Israel and Jews in general.
The new anti-Israel right despises Israel and the US support of it, either in terms that are commercial (there are more Arabs, with more money and oil), cowardly (trashing Jews does not earn terrorist reprisals; rebuking Muslims can), political (Jews more often vote Democratic), or simply antisemitic (cabals of Jews control Wall Street, Hollywood, the media, etc.).
Once-fringe antisemites like Nick Fuentes are now welcomed to air their views openly, but mostly the conspiracy venom is of the more insidious sort, like “I’m just throwing this out there. . .” or “Here is something to consider. . .”
In the last few weeks, we have been told — without any evidence — by right-wing influencers that the Jews may well have had a hand in killing Charlie Kirk, in bombing an Iranian nuclear facility, in pressuring the Maduro kleptocracy and in the 9/11 slaughter.
One hallmark of the new right-wing furor against Jews and Israel is the strange symbiosis they employ.
Formerly edgy podcasters become vicarious hosts of virulent antisemites. The partnerships are a way of not directly owning up to their toxicity but just “putting it out there.”
Candace Owens initially championed Kanye West (“I’m a bit sleepy tonight but when I wake up, I’m going death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE”).
Then she graduated to expressing her own old antisemitic tropes: “There is just a very small ring of specific people who are using the fact that they are Jewish to shield themselves from any criticism. . . . All Americans should want answers because this appears to be something that is quite sinister.”
Tucker Carlson hosted critics of the US effort against Hitler in World War II and Israel-behind-it conspiracists before escalating to inviting Nick Fuentes on in a mostly friendly manner — which might be attributed to his interview format, except he has attacked fellow conservatives far more than has odious Fuentes.
But now Carlson himself too throws out story-line hints about just maybe Jews’ involvement in Charlie Kirk’s death, or a sort of/kind of Jewish effort behind 9/11, or perhaps it was those Jews eating hummus, not the Roman prefect of Judea who ordered Jesus killed for supposed sedition — a common fate of any provincial residents who even appeared to defy the absolute authority of the Roman imperial state.
Carlson strangely categorized Israel as an “insignificant” country. But is not Israel a democratic Western outpost in a sea of Middle East autocracy, the most technically advanced and scientifically sophisticated nation for its size in the world and the ancient home of the Judeo-Christian tradition?
Somehow, many on the right forgot who funds the virulently anti-American mouthpiece Al-Jazeera, or where the 9/11 murderers came from, or who has killed Americans in Syria, Lebanon and on the Red Sea, or whom the Muslim Brotherhood, ISIS and theocratic Iran have vowed to destroy.
And as for Oct. 7 and what followed, Israel waited in vain for nearly three weeks for Hamas to give up the 3,000 terrorists who murdered 1,219 Jews, wounded 3,400 and took 254 hostages before mounting a full invasion of Gaza.
Where does it all end?
Either there will be an 11th-hour Western intolerance of antisemitism, a limit of student visas and immigration from the illiberal nations of the Middle East, a return to melting-pot assimilation, an end to DEI tribalism and a reform of the weaponized university curricula — or we will see more images of gunmen shooting Jews as if they were mere animals.
If this contrarianism were simply about ‘owning the libs’, it would be of no real consequence. However, ‘just asking questions’ has become a right-wing ploy to promote conspiracy theories while maintaining plausible deniability. And in a world where clicks generate cash and algorithms favour outrage, there’s a financial incentive to go all in on the outlandish. All this matters because it’s doing significant brand damage and shattering trust in institutions.
Douglas Murray’s recent bust-up with podcaster Joe Rogan and comedian Dave Smith demarcates this new dividing line on the right. The two-hour conversation hit a brick wall over whether to trust experts or spurn them.
This schism is having real-world effects in the realm of foreign policy. Thanks to the America Firsters, Uncle Sam can no longer be seen as a reliable ally, even at a time when Europe is facing Russian aggression.
This new form of conservatism is also redrawing the battle lines of the culture war. In recent years, the right has seemed like a paragon of reason compared with the left, which has imbibed woke orthodoxies, from critical race theory to trans activism. That is no longer the case.
I don’t sign up to everything Shapiro has to offer. I part ways with him on abortion and gun control, for example. But he’s right to stand up for traditional conservatism, which approaches new ideas with suspicion and defends institutions.
Geneva, December 28 — In a packed conference room smelling faintly of fair-trade coffee and moral superiority, representatives from the world’s leading human rights NGOs gathered Tuesday to reaffirm their ironclad stance that settler-colonialism is, without question, the worst thing anyone has ever done—except, they stressed, for one very specific country that definitely gets a pass, if everyone could just stop asking questions for five minutes while they look for the paperwork.
“Settler-colonialism is a uniquely evil framework,” declared Alex Soros, director of the Center for Global Atrocities That We Feel Comfortable Talking About Loudly. “It’s the deliberate replacement of an indigenous population with an invading settler society that claims the land as its eternal birthright. Utterly unforgivable. We have reports, infographics, viral TikToks—everything you need to be furious about it.”
The room erupted in vigorous nodding until a junior researcher timidly raised her hand and asked whether the same logic might apply to Turkey’s 1974 invasion of Cyprus, the subsequent displacement of 200,000 Greek Cypriots, and the ongoing importation of mainland Turkish settlers to permanently alter the island’s demographics.
The panel fell silent. Someone dropped a reusable water bottle.
Soros cleared his throat. “We’re… we’re almost certain there’s an exception in Turkey’s case,” he said, rifling through a binder labeled “Complicated Geopolitics We Hope No One Brings Up.” “It’s in here somewhere. Probably near the section on why Saudi Arabia isn’t technically a theocracy.”
A representative from Amnesty International chimed in helpfully: “Could be under ‘NATO Allies Get One Free Colonialism’ or maybe ‘Things We’ll Address Right After Qatar Hosts Another World Cup.’”
Sources confirmed the NGOs have been searching for the elusive Turkish Exception since at least 1923, when the Treaty of Lausanne mysteriously failed to include the clause reading “Turkey May Do Whatever It Wants Forever, No Takesies-Backsies.” Undeterred, the organizations have launched a multinational task force code-named Operation Where Did We Put That Darn Exception to comb through dusty archives, EU negotiation footnotes, and the bottom of various interns’ backpacks.
“It’s definitely around here somewhere,” insisted Hugo Beaumont of Human Rights Watch, holding up a 1987 memo that appeared to be a lunch order. “See? It says ‘kebab.’ That’s practically the same thing.”
When pressed on Turkey’s treatment of Kurdish communities—decades of forced displacement, village destructions, and demographic engineering that bear eerie resemblance to the very practices NGOs condemn elsewhere—the panel adopted a unified expression of thoughtful concern.
“That’s different,” Beaumont explained. “Those are… internal matters. Or security issues. Or ancient hatreds. Pick one. The point is, it’s super complicated, unlike the very simple and clear-cut situations in places we’re allowed to criticize.”
The conference concluded with a heartfelt pledge to keep looking for the exception, possibly behind the couch of realpolitik or under the rug of strategic Black Sea access. In the meantime, the NGOs urged the public to focus anger exclusively on settler-colonial projects that do not involve a country controlling vital migration routes to Europe.
“We’ll find it eventually,” Soros reassured reporters as he packed up his MacBook covered in “Land Back” stickers. “And when we do, you’ll all feel silly for ever doubting there was a perfectly good reason Turkey gets to keep doing colonialism. Until then, please direct all questions to our robust and totally consistent positions on other countries.”
At press time, sources reported the exception had been briefly spotted in the same drawer as Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and the moderate rebels in Syria.
First, anti-Zionism calls into question the very legitimacy of nationalism and the Jewish national home. There is no other instance where a people is denied the right to continue living in their state with such obsessive insistence by a political ideology ...
The second reason is that anti-Zionism adopts all the prejudices, tropes, and fantasies of anti-Semitism. Thus, instead of killing children to use their blood to make matzah, another persistent rumor claims that Israel harvests the organs of dead Palestinians. The conspiratorial logic at work in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion [an anti-Semitic text published in 1901, quickly exposed as a forgery that fantasized a Jewish plot to control the world] is also found in the work of the Swedish environmentalist Andreas Malm. According to him, Zionism was the superstructure enabling the infrastructure of Western oil extraction and is responsible for climate change, and therefore for the destruction of the planet. Contemporary anti-Zionism is not an opinion, but hatred, since it attributes an evil essence to Israel.
The third reason is that anti-Zionism contains an agenda of denying antisemitism, its denunciation being viewed with suspicion as a form of manipulation. This, in turn, makes killing Jews less scandalous and more legitimate. Slogans like "Globalize the Intifada" are in reality calls for the indiscriminate murder of Jewish civilians worldwide, since the Second Intifada [2000-2005] was a series of terrorist attacks against more than 1,000 Israeli civilians over five years. Such a slogan thus equates Israelis with Jews and, by establishing this equivalence, exports the conflict to a global scale.
While the Dreyfus Affair was French, Marr's anti-Semitic leagues German, and the Kishinev pogroms of 1903 Russian, anti-Semitism is now a global phenomenon, operating on several distinct levels. It is now coordinated worldwide. This is what the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement has achieved with great success. This movement emerged following the counter-summit to the UNESCO conference in Durban , South Africa , in 2001. Some 2,000 NGOs declared Israel guilty of being an "apartheid state ," of "racism , " "genocide," and "ethnic cleansing ." On the sidelines of this infamous conference, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion were being sold . Heir to this infamous event, BDS is active in approximately 120 countries and thus has a global reach. Good luck organizing a scientific conference today with Israelis and, increasingly, by association, with Zionist Jews.
Some prominent Jewish French anti-Zionists published a rebuttal in the same newspaper. The crux of their argument is this:
The necessary critique of Zionism... rests on a threefold rejection: the rejection of the idea that the destiny of the world's Jews is to emigrate to Israel, the rejection of their assimilation into that state, and the rejection of its ethno-religious character. For us, Jews, combating antisemitism does not involve endorsing Zionism but, on the contrary, recognizing the inalienable and equal rights of all human beings, engaging in universal struggles for the rights of all, and consequently, for the rights of the Palestinians.
1. Zionism does not say that the destiny of all Jews is to emigrate to Israel. This is a straw man argument. Zionism makes no such demand - it is a refuge for Jews who need or want one, ready to accept any Jews who are unwanted where they live.
2. I think this means that since Israel calls itself a Jewish state, then it is responsible for antisemitism against Jews who live outside it done in the name of "anti-Zionism." That is absurd: antisemitism is the fault of the antisemites, and believing their ever-morphing excuses for their hate is playing into their hands.
3. Many other states have an ethno-religious character. As long as there is no discrimination against the minority in everyday life, this is not a moral flaw. On the contrary, I would argue that this is superior to the model of the same universal system for every country in the world, which is not practical in any other context. Only Jews are expected to live under the benevolent rule of people who hate them, but not the Kurds, Tutsis, or Uyghurs. And if you deny Arab antisemitism, you are denying reality - every poll shows that Arab populations are overwhelmingly antisemitic.
The other arguments in the letter are also tired, like conflating legitimate criticism of Israeli policies with anti-Zionism, which is by definition eliminationist. These same anti-Zionists were against Israel's existence as a Jewish state even before the 2018 Nation-State Law that they are so worked up about.
Or their claim that Israel is illegitimate because it is "colonialist." Even if you accept that false argument, do they call for the dismantling of Australia, the US and Canada as well?
The implication of the response is that Jews are not really a nation, which we have discussed is antisemitic at the outset. If the Jewish people are a nation - which was universally understood over the two-thousand years of exile, by both Jews and non-Jews - then they have national rights. If they have national rights, then any alleged crimes do not take away those rights; if you argue otherwise then every Arab Muslim nation is illegitimate, and a Palestinian state would be invalid at the outset.
The rules are always different for the Jewish state. And that is what makes anti-Zionism antisemitism. Pointing out these double standards isn't whataboutism - it is evidence of the antisemitism at the core of the arguments themselves.
Egypt's purchase of $35 billion of natural gas from Israel was not the only transaction of Israeli products to nations that are otherwise hostile to Israel.
Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro is one of the world’s most prominent anti-Israel figures, who during the ware accused Israel of genocide and even called for the establishment of an army to liberate Palestine. However, Latin America’s ZM website reports that in the field, Colombia has continued the strategic integration process of Israel Aerospace Industries Barak MX air defense systems, which won a $131.2 million tender in 2022.
According to ZM, the Colombian Air Force is currently integrating the first battery of the system, including the command and control systems and radars. All of the procured batteries are due to be delivered by 2026, with full operational deployment to be completed by 2032. Colombia attaches great importance to the move both due to its interception capabilities and the radar upgrade involved.
I have long argued that a strong Israeli economy will always trump politics. If it has products that cannot be found elsewhere, nations will find a way to buy them.
This is why Netanyahu's recent announcement that Israel will develop an independent arms industry to become less dependent on others over the next decade is important. The only way this would be viable is if Israel is exporting the arms as well.
This story "Nitrel Nacht" was written by Martha Wolfenstein, a popular short story writer, in 1902. I found it in a book for Jewish teenagers published in 1921.
It tells a fictionalized story of the terror Jews had in Eastern Europe on Christmas Eve.
That the sun revolves around the Earth explains dawn but renders astronomy impossible. Similarly, of antisemitism, we are the victim of an error in logic: mistaking the effect for the cause.
It is a heartbreaking but understandable Jewish fantasy that antisemitism can be addressed by changing others’ opinions or our own behavior. Which is to say, by becoming more understanding of our oppressor’s need to be placated.
Jew-hatred exploded after the Oct. 7 massacre in response to Israeli “forgetfulness” of our historic status as beggars—existing only on the gracious sufferance of others. (Note that even the supposedly humane term “tolerance” means the ability to abide the noxious.)
Current antisemitic savagery echoes the South’s fear of and responses to slave revolts. The enslaved asserted the truth the oppressors feared above all: that they were actual human beings. The worried insistence on the contrary was found not only in law but, even more revealingly, in humor, where the punchline of any “joke” could be a dehumanization of blacks, demanding the complicity of laughter. One can’t take back a laugh.
Antisemitism has nothing to do with Jews. It is equivalent to child sacrifice: the offering to pagan gods of the lives of the unprotected. It emerges, historically, when a sufficient mass of the populace has become terrified into unreason and ceded control into the hands of the evil but assured. Pagan societies fearing the wrath of unknowable gods fed them innocent lives. The fearful of our age, unsettled by unassimilable change, seek security in mass thought and relief in violence. That’s all.
How can we know that one thing is truer than another? If it is sadder. I conclude not with a joke but with a proverb at the essence of most Jewish jokes: What is as whole as a Jew with a broken heart?
In 2002, Judea Pearl’s son, Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, was kidnapped and murdered in Pakistan while reporting on religious extremist groups in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. A video showed the captive journalist making coerced statements before he was killed. In one, Daniel Pearl said that he was Jewish, as were his parents.
Judea Pearl has not stopped thinking about that message. With his late wife Ruth Pearl and their two daughters, he established the Daniel Pearl Foundation to honor his son, including through a dialogue program with Muslim journalists. More recently, the Israeli-American scholar has also been contemplating what it means to be Jewish in the post-October 7, 2023, landscape.
A professor of computer science at the University of California, Los Angeles and a frequent op-ed contributor to Jewish media outlets, Pearl has had a front-row seat to witness changing attitudes toward Israel among American university students, especially after the bloody October 7 Hamas onslaught on Israel that killed 1,200 and kidnapped 251, and Israel’s subsequent war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Now Pearl has compiled some of his columns into a book, titled “Coexistence and Other Fighting Words: Selected Writings of Judea Pearl 2002-2025.”
Released on December 10, the book shows Pearl is as creative a thinker on the op-ed page as he is in the science lab. He coins multiple terms and phrases — notably “Zionophobia,” which he distinguishes from antisemitism.
“In one breath, it’s the denial of the Jewish people’s right to self-determination anywhere in the Middle East,” Pearl told The Times of Israel regarding Zionophobia. “It’s a simple definition.”
And, he argues, it’s what university administrators should be focusing on instead of antisemitism.
“We have been constantly speaking against antisemitism, not against anti-Zionism,” Pearl said. “The minute you mention antisemitism, you lose the game. Because someone will rush to appoint a task force, the task force will invite philosophers, the philosophers will climb Mt. Olympus, and you’ve lost 10 years of philosophical discussion in which nothing is being done. Antisemitism thus becomes a license for inaction — if not worse.”
Throughout the book, Pearl is unafraid to make similarly counterintuitive claims.
He mines primary sources for evidence that early Zionists such as Chaim Weizmann, Vladimir Jabotinsky and David Ben-Gurion sought a measure of accommodation with the native Arab population of Palestine. In defending Jewish ties to the land of Israel, he contends that indigeneity doesn’t have to stem from physical connection to a place — it can also derive from cultural attachment, such as the many mentions of Zion in the birkat hamazon prayer after eating bread, or the Jewish pilgrimage holiday of Sukkot. He compares today’s anti-Zionist Jews to coreligionists of the past who rebelled against mainstream thinking and were eventually forgotten by history — such as the Karaites, or the Sabateans.
Readers of the book will also learn about Pearl’s family background, which contains a significant amount of tragedy. In addition to the loss of his son in 2002, the author’s grandfather was murdered at Auschwitz during the Holocaust.
Yet, Pearl added, “I know that his last thoughts were about his grandson [me] growing up free in Israel.”
Pearl criticizes Holocaust museums, which he says do not include Israel in their narrative: “You see death and suffering, you don’t see Jewish revival. It’s a shame.”
Incredibly, it could have been even worse. This week, to round off an awful year for anti-Semitism, two radical Islamists in the UK were found guilty of planning the mass murder of Jews in Manchester. They arranged for guns to be smuggled into Britain so that they might cause ‘untold harm’ to the Jewish community. They were driven by a ‘visceral dislike’ of Jews and ‘very firm opinions’ on Gaza – anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism logically crashing together in an orgy of violent Jewphobia. Surely no one can continue to deny that Islamist anti-Semitism poses a grave threat to the modern West. We await the left’s clear condemnation of this medieval plot to massacre Jews. Meanwhile, in November it was announced that Mossad had foiled Hamas plots to massacre Jews across Europe. And still the half-wits of the faux-virtuous activist class see Mossad as the source of every earthly evil and Hamas as ‘resistance’. Shorter version: Killing Jews – fine. Saving them – how dare you.
How has this happened? How were gunmen and knifemen and mobs in the West allowed to heed that deathly instruction issued by Hamas on 7 October – namely, kill Jews? A key ingredient was the wilful blindness of the West. Jews and their friends warned over and over that things were spinning out of control. Alex Kleytman himself raised the alarm, in 2020, about ‘desecrated cemeteries [and] painted swastikas on the walls of synagogues’. Such barbarous racism reminded him of the dark past he survived. And yet Jews like him were ignored. They were accused of hyperbole, of ‘weaponising’ their feelings for cynical ends. Now he is dead while the vile minimisers of anit-Semtiism thrive.
Jews are once again bearing the brunt of the West’s abandonment of its civilisational values. Just as they were the prime victims of the Nazis’ ruthless destruction of European civilisation, so they are now the collateral damage of the modern West’s craven cowardice in the face of the Islamo-left threat. The elites’ fashionable loathing for the Jewish State has crashed together with the Islamist hatred for the Jewish people, giving rise to a moment of true danger for the Jewish people.
2025 has made it clear – we have failed our Jewish brothers and sisters. Europe’s porous borders allowed anti-Semites from regressive cultures to arrive on our shores. The cultural establishment’s frothing obsession with the ‘evil’ Jewish State reanimated the latent anti-Semitism of the bourgeoisie. The media’s ceaseless defamation of Israel, the damning of it as a genocidal entity that relishes in the murder of children, resuscitated blood libels of old. And the left’s flagrant ignoring of Jewish pleas for protection sealed the deal. ‘Don’t listen to them’, they essentially said. ‘They’re exaggerating.’ Even after Bondi, even following a massacre of Jews the Nazis would have gushed over, they’re saying this.
The West’s infrastructure of censorship played a central role in this callous damning of the Jews to their presumed fate. The elites’ ruthless shutdown of discussion about the borders problem, the rise of Islamism and the true nature of Israelophobia allowed regressive thinking and bigoted animus to fester and spread. It is always in the dark corners created by the cowardly creed of censorship that foul ideologies take root.
That ends right now. From Cable Street to the liberation of Auschwitz, goodness has frequently reasserted itself against the pox of Jew hatred and the contempt for human civilisation it always embodies. In 2026, we can do that again. Our best weapons? Liberty, truth and courage. And maybe some street-fighting where necessary.
Sydney will pause to remember the victims of the Bondi terror attack on New Year's Eve with a one-minute silence, while the Harbour Bridge pylons will be illuminated in white light.
The world-famous fireworks on Sydney Harbour will feel different to previous years following Australia’s deadliest terror attack on Bondi Beach.
On December 14, a mass shooting resulted in the murder of 15 innocent people.
The Harbour Bridge pylons will be illuminated just before the 9pm fireworks, then an image of a dove and the word ‘peace’ will be lit up.
At 11pm, the landmark will be cast in white light before a one-minute silence.
Sydneysiders will be encouraged to switch on their phone torches and shine a light in solidarity.
Sydney Mayor Clover Moore said this year’s NYE display will display Sydney’s strength to come together as one.
“While we are still reeling from the recent tragic events in Bondi, New Year’s Eve provides an opportunity to gather as a community, to pause and reflect, and to look with hope for a safer and more peaceful 2026,” Ms Moore said.
“Sydney New Year’s Eve is more than fireworks. It’s a reflection of who we are – a vibrant, diverse and inclusive city. Those values are more important than ever.
“These moments will provide an opportunity for people to show respect, to reflect on the atrocity and to say we will not let this hateful act of terror divide us.”
The Chief Rabbi has hailed the bravery of a 14-year-old girl who was shot while shielding two children during the Bondi Beach attacks.
Speaking to Jewish News after returning to the UK from a solidarity visit to Sydney, Sir Ephraim Mirvis said the teenager’s actions came to symbolise the wider response of Australia’s Jewish community – one marked not by anger or retreat, but by faith, dignity and moral resolve.
“She had reached a position of safety,” he said. “But when she saw others injured and vulnerable, she ran back towards danger. People shouted for her to come back, but she felt compelled to help.”
Sir Ephraim visited the girl, Chaya Dadon, in hospital shortly before leaving Australia. He said she saw a mother who had been injured and two children lying exposed on the ground and threw herself over them to protect them. She was shot while shielding the children and later underwent surgery.
“Thank God she will survive,” he said. “She spoke with faith and belief, and with a deep determination to redouble her efforts to serve God and to make this a better world.”
For the Chief Rabbi, the teenager now embodies the message he is carrying back from Bondi Beach.
“If there is one person who captures what I saw in Australia, it is her,” he said.
Sir Ephraim also paid tribute to Ahmed al-Ahmed, who intervened during the attack and was seriously injured. Although the Chief Rabbi was unable to meet him due to further surgery, he said he had hoped to thank him in person.
“On behalf of the entire Jewish world, we cannot thank him enough,” he said. “He is a role model for all our societies.”
JD has a weird thing going on with his dog Tucker Carlson/Youube
Disclaimer: the views expressed here are solely those of the author, weekly Judean Rose columnist Varda Meyers Epstein.
I started out writing something totally different, tonight.
Something about the dangers of a Vance presidency considering his arrogant comments at
TPUSA. The things the vice president said bear out my belief that JD Vance is not just an
isolationist, but a hater as well. In fact, the isolationism may only be cover for his true feelings about Jews. Who knows? But according to JD Vance, I am definitely allowed to say these things. As an American.
As I looked at all that wealth of information relating to hate among conservatives, I happened on a debate between Tucker Carlson and Piers Morgan about whether Israel qualifies as an "ally." I was appalled and nauseated by both men.
I created a transcript of their debate when I couldn't find a good one online. I am sharing it here for the benefit of those, who like me, prefer text, having no patience with video. I read fast, and would far rather read a transcript then space out as two arrogant men pontificate. Perhaps some of my readers share my preference for text.
But first a few (okay, so not a few) prefatory comments.
I called it right when I was taken aback by Vance’s reaction to a motion to declare sovereignty in Judea and Samaria coming before
the Knesset just as Vance’s plane was arriving at Lod Airport. When asked by a
reporter how the vice president felt about that, he said that it was weird and insulting.
Not long after that, there was a bit of a ruckus on X when it was discovered that JD's assistant is Buckley Carlson, none other than the
son of Tucker Carlson. This, we are made to believe, is perfectly normal. Besides, said Vance, we have no right to judge the son
according to the father. He was disgusted by any suggestions to the contrary.
Sloan Rachmuth is a "journalist" who has decided to obsessively attack a staffer in his 20s because she doesn't like the views of his father.
Every time I see a public attack on Buckley it's a complete lie. And yes, I notice ever person with an agenda who unfairly attacks a… https://t.co/bjFVuM2yBI
But while we aren't free to say what we think, Vance is. Tucker is his friend. It's okay to listen to
his hate speech and conspiracy theories. Which makes me wonder if Vance thinks that, in theory, it would be okay to laugh
at the victims of Bondi Beach or to listen to someone laugh at that, as if that were a totally normal thing to do. Nothing worthy of remark. Because freedom.
This would, after all, be the perfect application of Tucker
Carlson’s "principles" as outlined by Carlson and Piers Morgan, in their February
2025 debate.
Just now at TPUSA, we had an opportunity to see how people are lining up. We heard things like, “We can have a
conversation about that.”
What does it mean to JD Vance, Candace Owens, Megyn
Kelly, Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon, to have a "conversation?" It means they
are permitted to hate Israel and the Jews—and that it is their right as Americans to
express that hate openly—even in hearing of little children, if they wish.
Commenting on the the coming out of Megyn Kelly at TPUSA, my Facebook friend Moshe Z. Matitya said, "The overnight transmogrification of the big RW influencers feels like something straight out of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
"The first tweet from Megyn Kelly below is from 2 months ago; the second one is from two days ago."
Moshe shared two screenshots of Kelly's X posts.
To JD Vance and his associates, perhaps, this is the essence of what it means to be free. The right to express hateful views and also to remain
friends with those who express them. In theory, this would make it okay to say
that a little Australian girl deserved to die. And then lie about it.
Because that would be their right. As Americans. The supreme application of freedom in the good old USA.
***
TRANSCRIPT: Piers Morgan on The Tucker Carlson Show February 8, 2025 · 12:51 a.m.
Piers Morgan: Why do you support Israel against Hamas, for example? Why do you support America giving them billions of dollars? Tucker Carlson: Well, I don’t.
Piers Morgan: You don’t support Israel being supported by America? Tucker Carlson: Well, I… support Israel in the sense that I really like Israel. I brought my family on vacation.
Piers Morgan: But do you agree with America supplying them with a lot of arms? Tucker Carlson: To the extent that it helps the United States, I’m for it, of course. I think what we need is—
Piers Morgan: So you do believe in America interfering in countries a long way away. It just depends which country. Tucker Carlson: No. I, I—
Piers Morgan: Your principle, it doesn’t really apply in Israel. Tucker Carlson: I’ll articulate it for the third time, just to be totally clear. I believe the United States, like every country, should, to the extent that it can, act on behalf of its own people and their perceived interests. We can debate what those interests are.
Piers Morgan: But that doesn’t apply in Israel. Tucker Carlson: I don’t know what you mean.
Piers Morgan: America is supporting Israel because it’s an ally. Tucker Carlson: I don’t even know what those words mean. I’m just saying my principle is—
Piers Morgan: I mean, but isn’t it—they’re an ally, right? I mean, they both know what— Tucker Carlson: I don’t know what that means to be an ally. I mean, we have no—
Piers Morgan: It means that when Israel wants to attack in Gaza and attack Hamas, America will help it because it’s its ally. Tucker Carlson: That’s not what it means to be an ally.
Piers Morgan: So it gives it billions of dollars’ worth. Tucker Carlson: That’s not what it means to be an ally, okay?
Piers Morgan: Well, it fundamentally does. Tucker Carlson: I have no greater allies than my own children. When they come to me and say, “I want to do this,” I assess whether it’s good for them or not. If I don’t think it is, I don’t support it.
Piers Morgan: Right. Tucker Carlson: Because they’re my true allies. They’re my children.
Piers Morgan: But why would you support America getting involved in Israel? Tucker Carlson: Just because a country that’s your ally says, “I want to do this,” does not mean axiomatically you support it. Maybe it’s not good for you or me.
Piers Morgan: So do you support America supporting Israel to the tune of billions of dollars? Tucker Carlson: It depends. If you can make—
Piers Morgan: What’s in America’s interest? Tucker Carlson: It depends in all cases. It’s not just about Israel.
Piers Morgan: But do you support what’s happening then in the support in the attacks in Gaza, for example? Because I don’t see the difference between that and what’s happening in Ukraine. This is a long way away from America. There’s no direct involvement with America. There’s no mainland involvement with America. And yet you think it’s right that America supports Israel. Put words in your mouth. But you don’t think it’s right— Tucker Carlson: I don’t think those are the words that came out of my mouth.
Piers Morgan: You don’t think it’s right America supports Ukraine when Russia invades it? Tucker Carlson: I have a simple solution. Let me explain what I think, and then that way we’ll get—
Piers Morgan: Am I wrong? Tucker Carlson: We’ll get right to what I think.
Piers Morgan: Am I wrong? Tucker Carlson: I actually tuned out midway through. I’m not exactly sure what you said.
Piers Morgan: You can’t tune out when I’m right. Tucker Carlson: I did, I did, I did, I did.
Piers Morgan: Just because I’m right. You can’t tune out. Tucker Carlson: I didn’t follow everything you said.
Piers Morgan: You can’t tune out when I’m right. Tucker Carlson: No, it was more a lecture about what I think, and then I’m like, “Wait, I know what I think. I think I’m the world’s expert on what I’m thinking. I think I’m the uncontested premier of my own head.”
Piers Morgan: That is true. Tucker Carlson: So, I’m going to unload its contents on you right now.
Piers Morgan: Explain what is America’s national interest in Israel? Tucker Carlson: I’ll define the parameters as well, because I’m happier with that, okay? I would say I support the right of all sovereign nations to act within what they believe is their own interest. (laughing) Like we don’t always know our own interest in our personal lives or between nations. Like, we think it’s good for us, but it may not be. The vodka in the morning analogy. Not good, actually, but I thought it was. Now I know it’s not. But to the extent that we think we know, I think countries should act on behalf of their own citizens. That’s the basic idea in democracy. Okay? And there’s certainly—you could make a case that whatever we’re giving to Israel this year in the form of direct aid, military assistance, loan guarantees, however we’re doing it, is good for the United States. I think you just have to make that case.
Piers Morgan: Why is it good for the United States? Tucker Carlson: Well, you could make that case.
Piers Morgan: But why is it? Tucker Carlson: I’m not convinced.
Piers Morgan: What is the case? Tucker Carlson: Well, I don’t know. You’d have to be an advocate for it. You are a vociferous advocate for it. So why don’t you tell me?
Piers Morgan: For what? Tucker Carlson: For U.S. aid to Israel in the current conflict.
Piers Morgan: Actually, I haven’t expressed a view about that at all. I’m just curious about your… the difference in your— Tucker Carlson: You’re not an Israel hater, are you? Why do you hate Israel?
Piers Morgan: Not at all. Not at all. Tucker Carlson: Why are you attacking Israel? I don’t know why. What problem do you have with Israel, Piers?
Piers Morgan: I have no problem with Israel. Tucker Carlson: The press likes this. They secretly hate Israel.
Piers Morgan: I have no problem with Israel whatsoever. Tucker Carlson: It feels like you do. Is Netanyahu a dictator?
Piers Morgan: Actually, I don’t like Netanyahu. I think you should— Tucker Carlson: You hate Israel.
Piers Morgan: I think you should go. Let me, just, I’m going to ask you one more time— Tucker Carlson: Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Piers Morgan: Hang on. Hang on. Tucker Carlson: Now we’re getting into… I’m not comfortable with this.
Tucker Carlson: Here’s my question. Should I be platforming you? That’s my question. You just said you don’t like Netanyahu. Piers Morgan: I’m trying to work out whose brand suffers more when we platform each other. But let me ask you this. Let me ask you this.
Tucker Carlson: All right, I’m going to need a second.
Piers Morgan: One more time, just quietly for the people at the back. You don’t like America getting involved in helping Ukraine against Russia because there’s no national interest for America in doing that in your eyes. Tucker Carlson: Well, there’s a negative national interest.
Piers Morgan: Okay. Tucker Carlson: I found one.
Piers Morgan: So I get that. Tucker Carlson: We’re losing the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency because of this war.
Piers Morgan: All right. Fine. Tucker Carlson: There’s no greater national interest.
Piers Morgan: Your position is America first. There’s no interest for America. Shouldn’t be doing it. Every country should act for this. It’s a problem between Ukraine and Russia. Okay, that’s fine. A lot of people have that view. I respect it. What I can’t understand is the difference in your logic and principle about supporting Israel in its war with Hamas, which is many thousands of miles away from America. There’s no direct— Tucker Carlson: If I’ve been a great advocate for the war in Gaza, I missed that part of the conversation.
Piers Morgan: Well, you support America supporting Israel. Tucker Carlson: No.
Piers Morgan: You don’t support America supporting Ukraine. Tucker Carlson: No. I don’t support America supporting any nation on the planet to its own detriment. Every element of our foreign policy should serve the United States.
Piers Morgan: Okay. Tucker Carlson: That’s the point of our government: to serve the people who live there, called citizens. That’s what democracy is. There’s no other reason. So, if I’m in charge of a country and I decide, actually, I should do this because people who pay me want me to do it or I’m making money to do it, then I’m by definition illegitimate. That’s not democracy. That is a species of oligarchy or whatever. You could assign a name to it. That’s not democracy. So I just believe in our system, and our leaders should act on behalf of their own people or what they think is their own people’s interests. And I would apply that to Israel. I’d apply it to Ukraine. I think there have certainly been times where we have benefited from our alliance with Israel. You know, it’s an alliance. Just like we have an alliance with our country?
Piers Morgan: They are allies then. Tucker Carlson: I don’t know what ally means.
Piers Morgan: It’s short for alliance. Tucker Carlson: Yeah, you’re right. It is.
Piers Morgan: Yes! Tucker Carlson: It’s so funny. I never knew that.
Piers Morgan: I’ve got you. Tucker Carlson: You got me.
Piers Morgan: You’ve literally just— Tucker Carlson: When it comes to etymology, you are the unchallenged king.
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