02/28 Links: US and Israel launch major joint assault on Iran; Trump indicates goal is to topple regime; Trump says ‘evil’ Khamenei is dead

From Ian:

US and Israel launch major joint assault on Iran; Trump indicates goal is to topple regime

After long weeks of escalating regional tensions and burgeoning threats of conflict, Israel and the US launched a major joint strike on Iran on Saturday morning, with waves of attacks on sites across the Islamic Republic continuing throughout the day.

Strikes targeted Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Masoud Pezeshkian, an Israeli official said. Other top regime and military commanders were also targeted, according to the official. The results of the strikes were not yet clear.

Targets in the campaign, which began shortly after 8 a.m. Israel time, also included Iran’s military, symbols of government and intelligence targets, according to an official briefed on the operation, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss nonpublic information on the attack.

Several senior Revolutionary Guards commanders and political officials were killed, an Iranian source close to the establishment told Reuters. Among them were the commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Gen. Mohammad Pakpour, and Iranian defense minister Aziz Nasirzadeh, three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

US President Donald Trump announced that the US had begun “major combat operations in Iran,” calling the campaign “a massive and ongoing operation to prevent this very wicked, radical dictatorship from threatening America and our core national security interests.”

“We are going to destroy their missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground. It will be totally… obliterated. We are going to annihilate their navy,” he said in a video statement posted on his Truth Social account.

“We are going to ensure that the region’s terrorist proxies can no longer destabilize the region or the world and attack our forces.”

Trump indicated that the goal was to topple the regime, and he called on the Iranian people to seize the opportunity and take over their government.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in his own video message to the public that the operation was launched “to remove the existential threat” posed by the Islamic Republic, and “create the conditions” for Iranians to change their destiny.

“The time has come for all parts of the Iranian people… to cast off the yoke of tyranny and bring about a free and peace-seeking Iran,” the premier said.

Stephen Pollard: Donald Trump has just demonstrated the decisive leadership the West needs

Today that same Donald Trump – braggart, authoritarian and many other equally awful labels – stands before the world after an act of global leadership that makes all other leaders look like pygmies beside him. The decision to take on Iran and provide a platform for the destruction of the Tehran regime is one of the most vital and necessary acts of recent decades.

Trump’s statement this morning repays close reading. It is the most clear-sighted, compelling and important speeches by and Western leader since 9/11. For decades the Western nations have allowed Iran to grown in strength and deepen its threat. It has been allowed to become the global leader in state-sponsored terror. And the JCPOA – the Iran nuclear deal – was perhaps the most misguided international treaty in living memory. Who ripped it up? Donald Trump in his first term.

Now he is seeking to finish the job he started by using the might of the US military to cripple the Iranian regime and offer the brave, young people of Iran the chance of freedom. There is no greater prize in the Middle East. Iranians are natural allies of the West – and of Israel – and today is a day of hope and wonder, with the possibility now opening up that they might have the chance to witness the overthrowing of the hated regime. Naturally Trump’s war on the Iranian regime has attracted the ire of the usual suspects. Good. These are the same people who have either directly or indirectly aided the regime for decades. It is all to the good that they and their arguments are being treated with the contempt they deserve. This is no time for talk, but for action: and only Trump has the strength and bravery required to provide it.

Jake Wallis Simons: The world’s most evil regime is on the brink – and Britain has nothing to do with it

Where was Britain? As missiles reportedly killed the Ayatollah in Tehran, his office in London remained open. His ambassador has not been expelled. His Revolutionary Guards have not been banned in this country, even as they are under attack in their own.

Iran, together with its allies in Beijing and Moscow, is the clearest global evil since the Nazi regime. Its tentacles stretch into Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq, and into the campuses, mosques and protest movements of Britain. Yet our response has been more Neville Chamberlain than Winston Churchill.

What will it take for us to call an enemy an enemy? Domestically, the regime has murdered more than 40,000 citizens for the crime of calling for freedom. It has removed the uteruses of female protesters, injected prisoners with toxic substances, executed wounded activists in their hospital beds and demanded huge sums to return corpses of loved ones. The scenes of mothers weeping over the bodies of their children, or dancing in defiance at their funerals, have been unbearable.

Abroad, the regime is the foremost sponsor of terror, giving birth to Hezbollah, sponsoring Hamas and mounting scores of assassination and kidnap plots on British soil. Through its proxies, it runs a narcotics network stretching from Latin America to the Middle East, with supplies of Captagon alone fostering widespread addiction, violence and criminality.

Behind it all is a fanatical theology that lusts after an apocalyptic war to trigger the coming of the Mahdi, a 10th-century cleric who will supposedly return from invisibility to conquer the globe in the endtime. This is not an empty faith. For 47 years, the Ayatollah – who has reportedly been killed by a US or Israeli missile – has been plotting to fulfil this prophecy with a triune strategy of proxy militia, ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons.

That is where Iran’s resources and ingenuity have gone. While its citizens have languished in poverty atop the second-largest gas reserves on Earth, more than half-a-trillion dollars was spent on a failed nuclear programme and about $2 billion a year on proxy militia, for the sake of little more than bigotry and superstition.

Iran could have been a G20 country. Instead, in the fume-filled Palestine Square in central Tehran, a public clock counts down the hours to the supposed destruction of the Jewish state. Well, yesterday, while Britain blocked American warplanes from RAF bases because of “international law”, Israel and the United States called time on that countdown by rising to strangle the octopus.

The move was bold and fraught with risk. Without boots on the ground, there is no guarantee that the regime, which holds a monopoly on weapons in the country, will fall. If it does, there is no guarantee that a free, stable and democratic nation will emerge from the chaos.

But sometimes evil demands courage. What odds faced our soldiers on D-Day, or our pilots during the Battle of Britain? Which returns us to Downing Street. Hours after the war began, neither our Prime Minister nor his Foreign Secretary, fresh from humiliation at the hands of a political Islamist insurgency in Gorton and Danton, had even issued a public statement.

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02/27 Links Pt2: The US and Israeli left’s parallel ‘own goal’; The gross bigotry behind the Greens’ hippy facade; Israel's Forgotten Christians

From Ian:

Ruthie Blum: The US and Israeli left’s parallel ‘own goal’

Now for a similar “own goal” scored that day by the Israeli opposition. That occurred when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in the Jewish state and addressed the Knesset.

Ahead of his momentous visit—to sign a whopping 16 cooperation agreements, spanning agriculture, drone technology, satellite data, irrigation and fertilization management, pest control, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, education, digital finance, labor mobility, energy planning, defense coordination, trade facilitation, cultural exchange, innovation hubs and joint development initiatives—the anti-government lawmakers were apoplectic. Not about Modi, but rather due to Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana’s decision not to invite Supreme Court president Yitzhak Amit to the event.

This wasn’t the first time Ohana had gone against traditional protocol to nix Amit’s attendance at a historic parliamentary gathering. He did so, as well, when Trump spoke to the Knesset on Oct. 13, 2025.

The reason for this has to do with the government’s view that Amit doesn’t deserve his title as chief justice of the Supreme Court since he and his cronies appointed him through an illegitimate process. And reforming the judicial system—part of the very “deep state” of unelected officials overriding the laws forged by elected ones—has been a key goal of the current ruling coalition.

So, the opposition couldn’t have been surprised by Ohana’s move, making their outrage mainly performative.

Their initial reaction was to announce that they would boycott the proceedings. Fearing that the plenum would be partially empty for Modi’s appearance, Ohana came up with a plan: to fill the seats with former Knesset members.

But opposition leader Yair Lapid, who suffers from two afflictions—FOMO (fear of missing out) and near annihilation in the polls—didn’t want to squander his chance to take to the podium. The upshot was that the legislators who were furious about Amit’s absence walked out when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke, then returned for Modi’s oratory.

Brendan O'Neill: The gross bigotry behind the Greens’ hippy facade

Witness how they sought to marshall Muslim fury over the war in Gaza. ‘Punish Labour for Gaza’, Greens hollered at Muslim voters. Or consider how they gave a sinister nod and wink to anti-Hindu animus by distributing a video showing Keir Starmer shaking hands with Indian PM Narendra Modi. The video was in Urdu, too. It was a blatant attempt to appeal to Hinduphobia among certain Muslim constituencies by linking Starmer with the Hindu leader Islamists love to hate. But, Greens moan, Labour also did it in the Batley and Spen by-election in 2021 when it handed out a leaflet showing Boris Johnson with Modi alongside the words ‘Don’t risk a Tory MP who is not on your side’. Yes, and that was lowlife bigotry-mongering too.

Greens also gave interviews to 5Pillars, the hardline Islamic outlet that is sympathetic to the Taliban and regularly features cosy chats with the neo-fascist, Nick Griffin. If Goodwin had gone on a pod infamous for its far-right guests, we’d never have heard the end of it. Then there’s the Greens’ neo-misogyny. This is a party that bows to the post-truth sexist mantra that ‘trans women are women’. It would let men into women’s changing rooms, women’s sports, women’s rape shelters. Not content with demolishing the Jewish right of nationhood, Greens also want to do away with the female right of privacy and dignity.

How is it possible that a party that rubs shoulders with sectarian bigots, and which would sacrifice women’s rights at the altar of men’s feelings, and which demonises Jewish nationhood, can get away with calling itself ‘progressive’? Call me a stickler for linguistic accuracy, but such a searingly dismissive attitude to the rights of women and Jews sounds more ‘far right’ to me than anything Matt Goodwin has ever said.

The loony Greens are a firm reminder that women and Jews are the two great losers under the Islamo-left ideology. On one side we have the keffiyeh-adorned genderfluid left that thinks a man’s right to piss where he likes counts for more than a woman’s right to privacy and which views Zionism as a demonic force deserving of destruction. And on the other we have regressive Islamists who think women should be cloaked when out in public and that Jews are a pox on humankind. In flirting with both of these nauseating creeds, the Greens have made themselves into the prime engine of bigotry in mainstream British politics. Pricking their hippyish facade, and exposing the truth about woke, is a pressing task of our time.

Australia’s Child Safety Icon and the ‘Globalize the Intifada’ Contradiction

Australia’s most prominent child safety advocate has become the public face of a slogan authorities link to mass civilian violence. A close examination of her own philosophy, her Foundation’s charter, and Australia’s evolving legal landscape reveals a serious question of consistency.

On a balmy February afternoon in Sydney, Grace Tame stood before a crowd and led them in a chant: “Globalize the intifada.”

The 2021 Australian of the Year, known for her uncompromising campaign against child sexual abuse and her insistence that language shapes the conditions in which violence becomes possible, invoked a term most commonly associated with the Second Intifada, during which more than 1,000 Israelis were killed, including 741 civilians and 124 children.

The episode has ignited a contentious debate in Australian public life. But stripped of partisan noise, the core issue is narrower and more serious: whether the principles Tame has articulated for institutions and public figures apply equally to her own words.

Her Framework: Language Creates Environments
The Grace Tame Foundation’s mission is explicit: to “ensure the right of children to be safe no matter where they are.” Its work is grounded in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, including Article 19, which protects children from “all forms of physical or mental violence.”

The Foundation’s strategy emphasises shaping “social behaviours and attitudes” and creating environments in which children can thrive. Tame herself has repeatedly argued that harm begins with language; that grooming is linguistic before it is physical, and that normalizing certain speech patterns creates the conditions in which abuse becomes possible.

In her 2022 National Press Club address, Tame distilled this philosophy clearly: words are not neutral. They shape environments, and environments shape outcomes. As she put it, “Words are pervasively subliminally weaponized.”

It is precisely this framework that is now being applied to her use of “Globalize the Intifada.”

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02/27 Links Pt1: How The West Aided And Abetted Oct. 7; US UN School Principal for Participating in October 7; US superiority over Iran is obvious, the endgame is not

From Ian:

How The West Aided And Abetted The Oct. 7 Attack On Israel

U.S. contributions to UNRWA, ended in 2018 during Trump’s first term, were reinstated under Biden, sending hundreds of millions of dollars to Hamas via the United Nations “relief” organization. Worse, in the weeks after the attacks, Biden essentially rewarded Iran for funding Hamas, equipping it, and training its terrorists by releasing $6 billion in funds frozen by the Trump administration; ending Trump era oil sanctions, allowing Iran to increase its oil exports by 80%; and granting more than $10 billion in sanction waivers to the Ayatollah’s regime. All of this after Iran not only attacked Israel, but U.S. troops in the Middle East 83 times during Biden’s first two-and-a-half years in office.

In a book that is superb in all but its conclusions, While Israel Slept: How Hamas Surprised the Most Powerful Military in the Middle East (released September 2025), authors Yaakov Katz and Amir Bohbot place a preponderance of blame for the failures of Oct. 7 on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who had returned to office as prime minister just nine months before the attack, while the Biden administration is presented as a benevolent, even heroic, protector dealing with an ungrateful client state. That blame can be placed on a succession of governments, ministries, intelligence services, and the IDF there can be no doubt. But the Biden administration was a villain, playing both arsonist and fireman.

Hamas terrorists knew exactly where to go upon breaching the border fence because the Biden administration, following a policy not too dissimilar from the open border policy forced on the America people, pressed the Israelis to issue work visas to Gazans. Netanyahu refused. But the governments of his successors – Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid – issued them by the thousands. Sinwar saw the intelligence gathering opportunity this presented and seized it. The Israelis had unwittingly built a Trojan Horse in which his terrorists would be concealed. Hamas agents, posing as workers, entered Israel and hid weapons, scouted police stations, military bases the IDF thought secret, and kibbutzim, noting who lived where, and even who did and didn’t have a dog.

By the time Netanyahu returned to office in December 2022, he was presented with a fait accompli: more than 20,000 Gazans had work visas. He could cancel them, thereby risking the wrath of the United States and probable riots in Gaza, or maintain the status quo. At this point, it was too late. Not only did the fox already know the layout of the henhouse, but he set the table for the coming feast. Netanyahu’s guilt is, in the main, that of a myriad of others prior to the attack: He didn’t see it coming.

If the young woman who served as my IDF border guide was as yet untouched by cynicism, the same could not be said for SM. You don’t reach this level of the political game with your idealism intact. Former IDF – they all are – and longtime political operator, he’s seen too much. But he’s pleasant, informative, and interested in what I uncovered approximately 265 miles southwest of where we now sit.

For several years I had been investigating USAID corruption throughout South and Central America. I then followed the trail to Cairo. While there, I also wanted to get the Egyptian perspective on the Palestinians. That took only a minute and may be neatly summarized as they don’t want any of them. So, I turned my full attention to USAID. Once a small office within the U.S. Embassy, USAID Cairo was now a stand-alone compound that was more fortress than staging area for American benevolence to the third world. For the uninitiated, USAID has often served as a front for some of the United States government’s more nefarious activities, from forced sterilizations to CIA operations. My visit there would set off a chain reaction of events involving a standoff with the Egyptian secret police, absurd accusations of espionage, a raid on my hotel, and questions from the House Oversight Committee. (You can read the full story here.)

A couple of weeks after I got back to the United States, 19 men, in body armor and wielding AR-15s, surrounded my house in silence and under the cover of darkness in what is known as a “swatting” incident. Is there a connection? Possibly, possibly not. But it seems more than a little coincidental to the Israelis. (The FBI reassures me that they continue to investigate.)

Andrew Fox: Israel needs an Iron Dome to combat disinformation

So what would a serious response look like? How do we create an “Iron Dome” for disinformation?

Firstly, inoculation. Just as vaccines train the immune system, “prebunking” trains the mind. Teach people the common disinformation techniques before they encounter them, and how to spot emotional language, scapegoats, false dilemmas, fake experts, and doctored visuals. When you can name the trick, you are less likely to fall for it.

Secondly, transform media literacy into bias literacy. “Check the URL” is not sufficient. People need to practice recognizing their own psychological triggers: “Am I sharing this because it is true or because it is satisfying?” Develop habits like lateral reading, especially during breaking news: opening new tabs, cross-checking claims, and seeking independent corroboration before reacting or sharing.

Thirdly, redesign the attention economy. When algorithms reward outrage, society will drown in outrage. Platforms should introduce friction to rapid resharing, downrank known falsehoods and coordinated networks, and provide timely context from credible sources. Provenance and authenticity signals for images and videos should become as standard as spam filters. Regulators should demand transparency on political adverts and state-linked outlets without sliding into outright censorship.

Finally, focus on trust and empathy. Corrections land best when delivered by trusted messengers such as community leaders, local journalists, educators, and creators who can speak in a shared language without contempt. Disinformation feeds on social fracture; rebuilding civic trust is part of the cure.

In the social media age, truth will never be effortless again, but it can still win if we stop treating disinformation as a nuisance and start treating it as a psychological assault on the public mind.

Andrew Fox: US superiority over Iran is obvious, the endgame is not

Iran’s retaliation options are not limited to shooting down aircraft. Tehran can deploy asymmetric means: missile and drone strikes on regional infrastructure, harassment of shipping, blocking the Strait of Hormuz, cyber operations, and proxy violence. It is reported that Iranian military figures have warned of a shift away from “restrained retaliation” in response to any US attack, including the possibility of targeting US assets in the Persian Gulf region. The point is not that Iran can defeat the United States militarily (it cannot), but that it can force Washington to defend a broad perimeter while undertaking an air campaign, and that it can do so in ways that increase the risk of miscalculation and escalation.

There are even darker escalation pathways. If the regime believes it is facing extinction, it might choose options it would normally avoid because they could provoke catastrophic retaliation. We must seriously consider the logic of a cornered state: if the leadership believes the end is near, the temptation to shock, terrorise, or internationalise the conflict increases, or even deploy chemical or biological weapons. The best approach is through deterrence and risk management, but nonetheless, it remains a vital part of the strategic landscape that any serious planner must evaluate.

US military planning will expect sustained, weeks-long operations against Iran if the president orders an attack, on a scale far beyond a one-night “message strike”. Whether this becomes reality depends not only on military feasibility but also on how quickly the White House can turn bombing into a genuine political collapse inside Iran. If that collapse does not materialise, the Trump administration will be tempted to limit objectives: target nuclear and missile infrastructure, punish command nodes, then cease while claiming victory, leaving the regime bruised but still standing. This temptation grows with each week the regime survives, as every additional week of operations turns a war plan into a domestic political liability.

The military outcome of a strike campaign is never uncertain if the question is whether the United States can destroy what it can locate. The more difficult question is whether destroying what they find leads to the political results Washington desires. Airpower can coerce, degrade, terrify, and even trigger internal collapse if the regime is already decaying and an alternative power is ready to take advantage. However, decades of such operations show that air campaigns do not create legitimacy, govern territory, or shape the internal deals that determine who rules when the bombs cease. Aerial dominance does not equate to lasting political control, and “victory” defined solely in terms of target destruction often results in complex, long-term instability.

These are the risks. That said, it is entirely possible that the planned campaign will achieve great success and will lead to a smooth transition to a democratic and free Iran. This is not out of the question. However, the regime has learned that survival is the key to success, and it will now organise itself around staying alive rather than appearing strong. It can adapt tactically more quickly than Western publics can respond emotionally. It can raise costs without securing victory, and even if Washington can destroy the tools of Iranian power from the air, it cannot simply bomb its way to a clean succession.

The United States will be able to break Iranian capabilities. Whether it can break the regime’s grip, and what, exactly, replaces it if it does, is the part that should keep us skeptical of anyone guaranteeing a short war with a neat ending.

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David Miller extends his insane antisemitic conspiracy theories to "Pax Judaica, a thousand year reich"

David Miller, the disgraced former Bristol University professor fired for antisemitism and now a propagandist for Iran's PressTV, was interviewed this week where he explains his latest crazed conspiracy theory. 

Briefly. he connects the Mossad, the CIA, neoconservatives, Chabad, Jeffrey Epstein, a group of rich Jewish philanthropists, Birthright, the US Navy, the "Greater Israel" project, Ukrainian oligarchs, the UAE, diamond smuggling, drug running, Israeli spyware firms, Jewish day schools and of course the Israeli government in a massive enterprise he calls "Pax Judaica" controlling all Western armies and governments and designed to control the world for the next thousand years. 

I want to drill down on a single claim Miller makes to show how rigorously this "academic" uses sources.

Obviously, if rich Jews control the world, the center of that control is the Rothschild family. Miller states, "I mean Jews are massively over represented amongst the billionaires and in finance of course especially. I mean as we know the richest family in the world is remains the Rothschilds with a a fortune according to Newsweek of something like 15.3 trillion dollars."

He cites Newsweek, so let's find the article he got it from. It weas written by Sophie Grace Clark, who was clearly assigned to write a fluff piece without any research. Her bio says she is a "Live News reporter based in London, with a focus on crime stories. She ...had previously worked at The Mail on Sunday, The Daily Star, OK Magazine, and MyLondon. She is a graduate of Middlebury College. "

So Clark is a tabloid reporter, with no experience in finance. And it shows. Because this is what she wrote in her 2024 article "Who Are the Rothschilds, and How Much Are They Worth Today?"

The combined wealth of the Rothschild family across all its branches is estimated to be $15.7 trillion. A more conservative estimate from a Sunday Times report in 2023 said the Rothschilds were worth $1 billion.

The family did not appear on the outlet's 2024 Rich List.

If Clark knew the first thing about money, she would never have written that. For context: $15.7 trillion exceeds the combined GDP of Germany, France, Italy, and Spain. The Rothschild family, according to Newsweek's unsourced estimate, is wealthier than the four largest economies in Europe put together.

Clark's source for the $15.7 trillion estimate is, apparently, a Google search among antisemitic conspiracy sites. Because the only actual source she cites is the Sunday Times which estimates the entire family, combined, not reaching the top thousand wealthiest people. 

The difference between the sourced billion dollar estimate and the unsourced $15.7 trillion estimate is the same as saying that if Miller was paid $500 for his last PressTV appearance, Newsweek estimates that his fee was nearly $8 million. It does not say much for Newsweek that their editors allowed this to be published.

And that single unsourced sentence in a tabloid reporter's fluff piece is the scholarly foundation for a professor's confident claim that Jewish money controls the world.

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Buy EoZ's books  on Amazon! "He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024) PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

 

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Palgrave/Macmillan Publishes an Anti-Zionist Polemic — and Calls It Scholarship

The newly published  Palgrave Handbook of Racial Injustice and Resistance is not a fringe publication. Palgrave handbooks are used as sources in university courses. They carry institutional weight. They signal what the academy considers serious scholarship.

So it matters what they say and how they say it.

The first substantive chapter, immediately following the introduction, is by Ronit Lentin, retired professor at Trinity College Dublin. Most academic biographies in the book start off with "he is a professor of..." or "she is a senior lecturer at..." But Lentin's biography starts with "Ronit Lentin is a Jewish anti-Zionist woman." 

The title of this chapter is "Genocide Is Not a Metaphor: Reflections on Gaza and the Denial of the Crime of Genocide." 

That title tells you something. The first words of the article, after several quotes from Palestinians accusing Israel of genocide, are even more telling:  

The Zionist entity responded to the October 7 2023 act of resistance by the Gaza-based Islamic Resistance Movement—Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya, Hamas—by launching a massive air bombardment of the besieged Gaza enclave, followed by a ground offensive. 

If a massive pogrom of murders, burning families, rapes and kidnapping is referred to as an "act of resistance" we can see that we are not going to be reading anything remotely resembling objectivity.  

We can see that Lentin refers to Israel as "the Zionist entity." That alone should be disqualifying for a serious academic press. But within the article we see a far more egregious misuse of both language and a twisting of academic standards. 

Lentin does not refer to the Israel Defense Forces. She refers throughout to the "IGF" — the "Israeli Genocidal Forces." She uses this term deliberately and consistently, embedding the legal conclusion inside the noun so she never has to prove it again. Genocide is no longer a charge to be established — it is an identity, built into the name. Just as in the paper's title, Every subsequent sentence that uses "IGF" inherits that verdict without argument.

In an activist pamphlet, this would be polemical but at least honest about what it is. In a Palgrave academic handbook, it is a pre-verdict dressed as terminology — a rhetorical move that forecloses the analysis it pretends to conduct.

Ask yourself whether Lentin would accept "Palestinian Jihadist Forces" or "Hamas Exterminationist Movement" as neutral academic terminology in a scholarly volume. She cannot even acknowledge Hamas as a terrorist organization — that label, she writes, is merely how 'white Jewish supremacy' frames it — and insists the October 7 attack must be understood as resistance to colonialism (p. 30).

Lentin argues that Zionism is "essentially a race-making ideology and practice" rooted in "European Jewish racial supremacy." This is her axiom, stated in the opening pages and never subsequently argued — only applied. From that premise, everything follows with logical inevitability: Gaza is racialized violence, Israeli military operations are genocidal by definition, and anyone who questions the genocide framing is participating in racial ideology.

Conspiracy theories and closed systems look exactly like this. It is internally coherent and completely unfalsifiable. Counter-evidence does not challenge the framework — it confirms it, as proof of how deep the denial runs.

Lentin is at least partially aware of this exposure. She writes that the chapter "does not deal with the legal implications" of genocide. Rather than modesty, this is insulation. By relocating the debate from international law — where genocide has a specific legal threshold requiring demonstrated intent — to race theory and colonial discourse, she moves onto terrain where legal standards of proof do not apply. Then she uses the word "genocide" as a legal and literal term throughout, even quoting approvingly from scholars who call Gaza "more than genocide." The chapter title insists genocide is not a metaphor, but she has quietly removed the framework that would make it anything other than one.

The author deliberately obscures what happened on October 7 - kidnapping women and children, slaughtering families, cold blooded murders of young people at a dance festival. Since facts upset the coherence of her arguments, she ignores them. Although when it comes to rape, she has a lot to say.

The rape allegations, Lentin argues, function not as evidence of atrocity but as a "racial boundary maintenance" mechanism — a tool for dehumanizing Palestinians and constructing Jewish women as symbols of national purity requiring protection. She cites Ali Abunimah of Electronic Intifada twice: once for the claim that the rape accusations rest on "emotional manipulation, outlandish claims, distortion, and an appeal to racist notions," and once for the claim that prosecutors found no October 7 rape victims. She cites the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs report only to immediately undercut it, and cites a Guardian piece noting no victims were identified by name.

What she does not cite is the Pramila Patten report.

Patten is the UN Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict. Her March 2024 report — document A/78/773 — found "clear and convincing information" that sexual violence occurred on October 7, including rape and gang rape, and concluded there were "reasonable grounds to believe" these acts were "widespread and systematic." It is the authoritative UN document specifically addressing October 7 sexual violence, and it does not appear anywhere in Lentin's references.

Similarly, the first Israeli hostage to directly admit being sexually abused also went public in March 2024. Lentin does not want to admit it - so she ignores it. 

Compare this to her treatment of Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Palestinian Territories, whose reports Lentin cites approvingly and repeatedly as evidence of genocide. Albanese, it should be noted, is not a lawyer. Her mandate is advocacy, not adjudication. But Lentin treats her warnings as institutional validation while ignoring the findings of the UN's own investigator on sexual violence.

The pattern is precise: the UN is authoritative when it supports the genocide framing and irrelevant when it documents Hamas sexual violence. The Patten report was published a full year before she wrote this piece. . It was widely covered. Lentin cites sources from 2024 and 2025 throughout. She chose not to engage with it because its findings complicated her argument that rape discourse is a Zionist racial instrument.

Individual bad papers exist in every field. What matters here is the editorial decision to open a Palgrave handbook's substantive content with this chapter. It tells readers how the editors believe the Israeli-Arab conflict should be categorized — not merely as a political dispute, a territorial conflict, or even a humanitarian crisis, but as the paradigmatic example of racial injustice. Before a word of any other chapter is read, the framework has been established: Israel is a white supremacist racial state, Gaza is a genocide, and skepticism is denial.

University syllabi will cite this volume. Graduate students will footnote it. It will be used to establish what "the scholarly consensus" holds.

Lentin is a sophisticated scholar who knows how to insulate an argument. She disclaims legal analysis while making legal accusations. She frames rape evidence as racial discourse. She cites the UN selectively. She builds a system where every objection is pre-categorized as ideological.

But the IGF rename gives it away. So does the missing Patten report. So does citing a partisan blog twice on sexual violence while ignoring the UN's own investigator on the same subject.

Lentin's framework has one final, self-sealing feature worth naming explicitly. Once genocide is established as axiomatic, the focus shifts to its denial — and denial itself becomes the crime. Her chapter title is not just "Genocide Is Not a Metaphor" but "Reflections on Gaza and the Denial of the Crime of Genocide." The denial is the subject, not the genocide itself.

This is elegant, in a troubling way. No one disputes that Israeli officials, journalists, and supporters dispute the genocide charge. That denial is real and documented. So Lentin has constructed a framework where the one thing no one can argue against — that Israelis deny committing genocide — becomes proof of their ideology. The denial confirms the racial logic. The more vigorously you reject the charge, the deeper your complicity.

There are no facts that Lentin can accept that  would disprove her thesis. And that is evidence that her entire well-footnoted article is structurally identical to antisemitic conspiracy theory.

Academic freedom means the right to publish arguments. It does not obligate the rest of us to pretend that selective citation, unfalsifiable frameworks, and pre-verdict terminology constitute scholarship. Palgrave/Macmillan apparently disagrees.

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Buy EoZ's books  on Amazon! "He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024) PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

 

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02/26 Links Pt2: How the Revolutionary Left Embraced Radical Islam; Parents Sue California State Education System Over ‘Anti-Semitic Propaganda’ and Harassment; Modi places wreath at Yad Vashem’s Hall of Remembrance

From Ian:

How the Revolutionary Left Embraced Radical Islam

In 2006, in a public discussion of Israel’s assault on Lebanon, the feminist scholar Judith Butler characterized Hamas and Hezbollah as “part of the global left.” Butler’s remarks provoked a scandal at the time, but after the October 7 attacks, it became common to hear Western leftist protesters chanting slogans like “long live Hamas!” How did Middle Eastern terrorist groups rooted in radical Islamic ideology come to occupy such a central place in otherwise secular left-wing politics? In The Revolutionists: The Story of the Extremists Who Hijacked the 1970s, journalist Jason Burke takes up this question, exploring the historical roots of the Palestinian national movement and situating its rise within the transition from 1970s left-wing radicalism to the emergence of radical Islamism, which reshaped global politics in the 1980s.

Burke’s account brings to life the central figures of this transnational revolutionary movement: Leila Khaled of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Fusako Shigenobu of the Japanese Red Army, Ulrike Meinhof from the German Red Army Faction, and “Carlos the Jackal,” the nom de guerre of the sociopathic Venezuelan-born gun for hire Ilich Ramírez Sánchez. These leftist militants moved fluidly across borders, traveling from sympathetic regimes in the Middle East to hubs of revolutionary fervor, most notably the PLO’s refugee camps in Lebanon and Jordan. They hijacked airplanes and marched with Kalashnikovs in the desert. Inspired by the revolutionary tracts of Frantz Fanon, Régis Debray, Che Guevara, and Mao Zedong, they forged a transnational network of anti-colonial insurgency and solidarity.

These left-wing radicals took Mao’s dictum that “political power grows out of the barrel of a gun” to heart and concluded that electoral politics and peaceful protest were insufficient for taking on the global forces of capitalism, imperialism, and colonialism. But this analysis also created its own problems. The enemy these militants fought was not a single politician, national government, or corporation, but a vast, complex global political and economic system, so it was always unclear how a small number of assassinations and kidnappings could defeat it.

This is part of why Israel became their primary target. The radicals of the era viewed the Jewish state as the most egregious manifestation of capitalist decadence and settler colonialism, but also as small and weak enough to be brought down through violent direct action. By doing so, they believed they could hasten the inevitable collapse of a rotten Euro-American imperial system.

The ideological current underpinning this radical global project was internationalism. Building on Marx’s dictum that class conflict had no national boundaries, these radicals traveled the world for training, combat, and refuge. From the street cafes of Paris to the Arab communist enclave of Aden, the revolutionaries searched for hideout spots and friendly governments in far-flung parts of the world. For example, “Carlos the Jackal,” settled in the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen after fleeing authorities in Europe.

Burke offers a compellingly detailed picture of these radicals’ delusions of grandeur and the many comical contradictions that hampered their efforts. For example, a group of British Trotskyists drank alcohol in a PLO training camp and got into a fist fight with British Maoists as well as with the Palestinian guards who tried to confiscate their bottles. The German Red Army Faction mistakenly incorporated a submachine gun used by West German security forces into their logo, instead of the Kalashnikov, the weapon most associated with anti-colonial resistance. German radicals were so repulsed by the dirtiness of a PFLP office in Yemen that they went on a blitzkrieg-style cleaning spree. These militants romanticized the life of the revolutionary and were convinced they were forging a more just world, but they were constantly undermined by their own incompetence, poor planning, bad tempers, and cultural cluelessness.

Seth Mandel: The Emotional and Intellectual Fragility of Anti-Israel Activists

The few stills from the video presentation that have leaked focus on Islamophobia and something called “anti-Palestinian racism.” One example of anti-Palestinian racism, provided on a slide about “APR in Education,” is: “Being called Antisemitic if they are Pro-Palestinian or speak up about APR.”

This is a neat trick, and it is in line with the wider speech-chilling campaign conducted by pro-Hamas propagandists: It is “racist” to call someone an anti-Semite.

Because this idea is ubiquitous among Gaza Westerners, it tells us a few things about members of this movement.

First, they exhibit a level of emotional and intellectual fragility that is, frankly, pathetic. This training reportedly showed a map of Israel replaced by the Palestinian flag, and yet “teaching students that ‘Israel is a free democratic state’ would render teachers ‘racist’ in the eyes of the board,” Hummel explains. That the “pro-Palestinian” narrative relies on such Stalinism is not unrelated to the fact that much of modern anti-Zionist propaganda was produced by the Soviet Union in the first place. Yet even by the standards of anti-freedom Hamasniks, this scale of reality-aversion in adults is frightening.

Second, the process by which this campaign is being carried out is anti-democratic in the extreme. That means the system will be anti-democratic about everything it does. Israel isn’t the exception but the rule. The ultimate target, then, is the Western system of liberty and self-government, with which strident anti-Zionism is entirely incompatible.

Third, the terminology is an assault on language. “Anti-Palestinian racism” is a ridiculous, self-contradictory phrase that ought to be laughed out of the room. If it were racism, they could just call it racism. Since it isn’t, its proponents have come up with a term that means “pretend ‘Palestinian’ is something it’s not.”

And fourth, absolutely none of the movement’s complaints about “policing anti-Israel rhetoric” are to be taken seriously. These lunatics are arguing that openly calling for genocide against the Jews is not only within the bounds of neutral argumentation but that it is fundamental to the identity of what might be called Palestinianism. But saying “Israel is a democratic state” is so “racist” that educators have to be trained not to say it around children.

As this type of “equity” training colonizes Western academia at every level of schooling, it’s easy to see why these activists want it kept secret. Any self-respecting person would be ashamed to be a part of it.

The Real Reason the “Pro-Pals” Did not speak out on behalf of Iranians

The author seems to think this is perfectly understandable under the circumstances of the Palestinians’ lives imposed on them, not by their own leaders who drag them into incessant conflict, but because of Israel’s terrible treatment of Palestinians [2](also in the West Bank- I guess the Gazans were channeling their brothers and sisters.) In point of fact, Israel had not stepped foot in Gaza since 2005. Only when Hamas was elected to lead and resumed firing rockets at Israeli towns on a near daily basis, did Israel together with Egypt impose a blockade to prevent the Gazans from bringing in more tools of destruction (it didn’t work).

Mr. QJ laments the number of deaths of Palestinians at the hands of Israelis but you know what he never mentions even once? Hamas and a good part of the Palestinian population at large, is dedicated to the destruction of Israel and killing Jews as they have threatened to do repeatedly. And we had a front row seat to how that threat has been and, if given the opportunity, will continue to be carried out, on October 7, 2023. Israel set out to destroy Hamas so that the October 7 atrocities can never be repeated — and all of its actions in Gaza were proportionate to war’s purpose. No one forced Hamas to store munitions in schools and use hospitals as a base for military operations or to shoot from people’s homes making civilian casualties unavoidable.

The author’s point is essentially this: We don’t need to stand up for Iranians because there is substantial agreement in the country that what Iran is doing is wrong. We need only protest Israel’s actions because Israel has the support of its American ally.

So notwithstanding the real genocide in Sudan, no need to support the Sudanese because we all agree that they are oppressed and the United States is not supporting Sudan,

Tell that to the people who spoke out on behalf of the Ukrainians and against the South African apartheid.

What message does silence send to the Iranian people who are risking their lives for freedom? Some suffering is more worthy than others?

In other words, instead of answering the question—why some activists ignore atrocities in Iran—the author takes the opportunity to add to the slanderous vitriol against Israel who are portrayed as uniquely evil and invents a narrative that absolves him of any moral responsibility, Iran as irrelevant, and critical thinking is nowhere in sight.

This was not an article to be taken seriously on its merits and I would not usually pay attention to this kind of drivel but the author has 18,000 followers and lots of support. Fair minded people cannot allow antisemitic voices to continue slandering the State of Israel without raising our hands.

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02/26 Links Pt1: The crumbling wall of Hamas propaganda; Ex-hostage Matan Angrest reveals he was tortured; The Disastrous Legacy of Mahmoud Abbas

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: The crumbling wall of Hamas propaganda

That “genocide” lie has now been revealed as a travesty by Hamas itself. In its latest revision of the number of deaths in Gaza during the war, it says that 68,800 died. As before, it provides no acknowledgement of the number of these casualties who were terrorist combatants, nor the number who were killed by misfired rockets from Gaza or execution by Hamas (of which there have been many), nor indeed the number of natural deaths.

Most of the dead were men aged 18 to 59. According to researcher Gabriel Epstein, who broke the numbers down for Haaretz, the Hamas statistics show a much higher share of adult men and older teenage boys relative to their share of the population and a much lower share of women and children.

This totally refutes the mantra that those killed by Israel were “overwhelmingly” women and children. And, of course, it exposes the claim of genocide as utterly ludicrous.

Among those who have defamed Israel with these lies for the past 28 months, there is no admission of the terrible wrong they have done, even as their narrative collapses around them. Far from acknowledging that an unknown number of its staff have terrorist links, MSF is refusing to share a list of its Palestinian and international staff with Israeli authorities as part of the registration process to work in Gaza and the “West Bank.”

What’s more, its admission about terrorists at Nasser Hospital was buried in a rarely referenced FAQ page on the MSF website, where it was spotted by the eagle-eyed analyst Salo Aizenberg.

There appears to be nothing about this MSF report, the PIJ “dual identity” revelations or the revised Hamas statistical breakdown on the websites of Israel’s chief media demonizers, the BBC and The New York Times.

As for Oxfam, the BBC website reports the industrial tribunal case Begum has brought against the charity by detailing claims against her of bullying and other leadership issues, while failing to mention her explosive charge that Oxfam has a “toxic antisemitic culture.”

Nor is this the first time that MSF’s halo has been tarnished from within. In December 2023, Alain Destexhe, MSF’s former head, published a 47-page report based on tweets and posts by MSF staff on X and on Facebook.

This revealed that a significant proportion of MSF staff in Gaza supported Hamas, including its onslaught on Oct. 7. They never denounced on X the crimes committed by Hamas on that day, the taking of hostages, or the use of hospitals as barracks or human shields.

While MSF spared Hamas, said the report, the NGO accused Israel of “all the crimes,” using terms such as “massacres,” “annihilation,” and “accepted and organized sacrifice.”

“Is it possible,” it asked, “that MSF and its employees knew nothing and saw nothing of the violations of humanitarian law in the hospital by Hamas?”

It’s a good question, which could usefully be repeated about others. Is it possible that the Western media and the rest of the liberal establishment that demonize and defame Israel know nothing and see nothing of the violations of truth and evidence by Hamas?

The answer, incredible as it seems, is yes—and no. Those who see it shut their eyes to it. Others don’t allow themselves to see it at all.

Nothing, including whistleblowing or revised information from within, can be allowed to challenge the Western liberal narrative of heartless Israeli colonizers and wretched displaced Palestinians. Which is why the entire media, humanitarian and human-rights complex, which has poisoned the mind of the West with this exterminatory propaganda, is itself an accomplice to an all-too-real genocidal program.

Former hostage Matan Angrest says he was electrocuted in captivity

Former hostage Matan Angrest says he was tortured and electrocuted during his two-plus years in Hamas captivity.

“For eight hours in a row, I sat and had to tell them things, during which I knew that it wasn’t just about my own well-being but the security of the country at stake. There are things that are in the realm of ‘die and don’t tell,'” Angrest tells Channel 12’s Uvda investigative program, indicating that he was exposed to highly classified intelligence during his service in an elite tank unit.

Angrest recalls opening his eyes for the first time after he was kidnapped from his tank, which was hit by an RPG on the Gaza border.

He says he found himself in a home in Gaza with over half a dozen Palestinians sitting in front of him.

They began asking him questions about where he served and where he was kidnapped from, but the questions were in Arabic and he didn’t understand. His captors then got angry and started beating him while his hands and feet were tied.

He says he couldn’t move his arm because it was burned so badly.

“Someone came to me with two cables and put them on my wound and just turned (a machine) on. I could feel myself being electrocuted. I screamed in a pain that is impossible to describe,” Angrest says.

The Disastrous Legacy of Mahmoud Abbas

Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, who became head of the Palestine Liberation Organization after Yasser Arafat's death, is a Holocaust-denying, terror-supporting, corrupt dictator who was bad for Israel, bad for the Palestinians, and bad for peace, which he undermined more than promoted. His policies promoted, incited, and rewarded terrorism and the systematic indoctrination of generations of Palestinians to hate Israel and Israelis.

He insisted on treating genocidal terrorist organizations such as Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) as legitimate Palestinian factions and continued to reject peace efforts. Abbas bears direct responsibility for the deaths of thousands of Palestinians and Israelis. If the PA is to continue playing any future role, any future Palestinian leader must be the absolute antithesis of Abbas.

While consistently feigning moderation and pragmatism, Abbas consistently rejected peace. In 2008, he rejected an offer by then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to create a Palestinian state. Instead, Abbas chose to pursue virtual statehood, repeatedly requesting that the UN recognize the non-existent "State of Palestine."

Abbas accumulated a substantial personal fortune estimated to be over $100 million. His sons, Tarek and Yasser, run the large Falcon business consortium that controls much of Palestinian commerce. The consortium includes tobacco, electrical and mechanical engineering, media, construction, and investment interests. They, too, have amassed huge personal fortunes.

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Parents Admit ‘Some Concern’ As Gannenet Deploys ED-209 To Guard Bamba (PreOccupied Territory)

 Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook  and  Substack pages.

Parents Admit ‘Some Concern’ As Gannenet Deploys ED-209 To Guard Bamba

Jerusalem, February 27 - A wave of snack thefts at a local daycare has prompted the preschool teacher to install an enforcement droid to prevent further trespasses, but the unit's reputation for uncompromising implementation of its protocols has some adults in the community wondering whether other, less extreme, options might deserve exploration before this solution gets implemented, lest, for example, a child gets frightened.

Parents of the two dozen children at Gan Esti in the city's Giv'at Massua neighborhood expressed a modicum of anxiety over the use of the Omni Consumer Products ED-209, following at least two instances of children in Esti's care breaking into the cabinet and stealing Bamba.

"We have some concern," acknowledged Yuval Shalev, father of Lihi, 5. "Nobody wants their child consuming too much junk food, and certainly nobody wants their child to learn that stealing is tolerated. Everyone agrees on that. We just think that, maybe, before resorting to a machine that riddles the suspect with hundreds of rounds, continuing even after he's just a convulsing corpse, should sit no higher than, say, ninth of the list of deterrence possibilities."

The preschool teacher, Esti Cohen, defended the decision with characteristic gannenet pragmatism. "Bamba is not just a snack — it's practically a food group," she explained in a brief phone interview. "After the second incident, where little Noam [Sharabi, 4] managed to pry open the cabinet during circle time and distributed half the stash to his friends before I noticed, I realized we needed something more reliable than a child-proof lock. The ED-209 arrived last week from a... surplus supplier. It's programmed for compliance enforcement. Simple."

Cohen emphasized that the unit remains in standby mode during most gan hours, stationed discreetly behind the craft-supply shelf with its massive frame partially concealed by a colorful mural of the Israeli flag and smiling cartoon animals. "We only activate it when there are fewer staff members in the room," she added. "And we've adjusted the protocols — no lethal force unless the offender refuses to return the pilfered bag after verbal warning. It's very reasonable."

Not all parents share that confidence. Michal Levy, mother of twins aged 4, described the robot's arrival as "a bit much, even for Jerusalem standards." She pointed out that the ED-209's distinctive mechanical growl occasionally echoes through the thin walls during naptime, startling some of the younger children awake. "One boy asked if it's a new kind of dinosaur," she said. "We told him it's a very big toy. But honestly? We're worried about the 'twenty seconds to comply' part. Toddlers and preschoolers don't count that well, if at all."

Community WhatsApp groups have lit up with memes: side-by-side photos of the hulking droid looming over innocent orange Bamba bags, captioned with variations on "You have 20 seconds to hand over the puff...." "You are in violation of Gan Protocol III Section 9." Some parents have suggested alternatives —reward charts, a "Bamba honor system," or simply buying more bags to avoid scarcity-driven crime. A few even floated crowdfunding a less aggressive model, perhaps an ED-101 with softer protocols.

Shalev, the father quoted earlier, remains diplomatic but firm. "We're not against innovation," he said. "Israelis love tech. But when the alternative to a five-year-old grabbing an extra handful is hundreds of rounds turning the play area into a crime scene reenactment, maybe we dial it back. Start with a stern look, move up to time-outs, then maybe a locked box. At least in our home, even when he's at his worst, we try to avoid murdering a misbehaving child."

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Buy EoZ's books  on Amazon! "He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024) PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

 

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Most Palestinians, among themselves, consider themselves as originating from outside Palestine

There is a striking disconnect between three different ways Palestinian identity is described: in genetic studies, in Western political discourse, and in internal clan narratives.

Start with genetics. Most population studies show that Palestinian DNA is overwhelmingly Levantine - often over 80%. That category includes Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, so it does not prove continuous residence within the borders of Mandatory Palestine. Still, genetically speaking, Palestinians are largely a Levantine population.

Now look at how Palestinian identity is framed in the West. There the emphasis is on absolute indigeneity: a people wholly rooted in the land, implicitly contrasted with Jews portrayed as foreign. In that framing, outside origins are minimized or ignored.

But there is a third narrative - the one found in Palestinian clan histories, tribal affiliations and social media accounts. Here, a very different picture emerges. Many families openly state, and often take pride in, origins outside Palestine: Hejaz, Yemen, the Arabian Peninsula, Egypt, Syria, even Circassian or Kurdish migrations during Ottoman times.

To move beyond anecdote, I examined the appendix of Glenn Robinson’s 2009 paper “Palestinian Tribes, Clans, and Notable Families.” The list was not compiled with this issue in mind, which makes it a reasonably neutral sample of prominent Palestinian family names. After removing duplicates, roughly 95 families remained.

The origins of about 10% of the families could not be identified. Of the remainder:

• About 20% described themselves as indigenous to the local Levant.

• About 12% traced their origins to older Levantine Arab migrations that long predated Islam.

• About 69% claimed migration from Arabia or other external regions, including prestigious lineages tied to the Hejaz, Yemen, Bedouin tribes, Hashemite ancestry, companions of Muhammad, Egyptian arrivals, or Ottoman-era migrations.

In other words, among families that preserve and publicize origin traditions, roughly 80% associate themselves with roots outside Palestine.

This does not necessarily contradict the DNA evidence. Male-line tribal migrations marrying local women could easily produce a largely Levantine genetic profile alongside Arabian clan narratives. The point is not genetic purity. It is self-perception.

Why do so many families prefer to emphasize external tribal origins rather than local indigeneity? In Arab society, descent from prestigious tribes - especially those connected to early Islamic history - carries social capital. Identity narratives often follow honor and status.

That creates tension with the Western-facing narrative of exclusive indigeneity. Internally, many families celebrate migration stories. Externally, migration is rhetorically erased. Their self-definition is that they came from elsewhere, not that they are proudly native Palestinians - even when their DNA might say otherwise. 

By contrast, Jewish diasporic naming traditions generally preserve identification with ancient Israelite tribes rather than with host nations. Ashkenazic Jews did not historically claim Polish or Hungarian tribal origin as a source of prestige. Surnames such as Cohen, Katz, Levi and even Loeb. Wolf and Hirsch explicitly reference biblical lineage. Whether every claim is provable is secondary; the identity myth points toward ancient Israel, not toward the countries of exile.

This small fact is of course Kryptonite to the prevailing anti-Israel propaganda that Jews are illegal settlers and Palestinians are indigenous. The Jews never relinquished their ties to the land from their origins; Palestinians by and large do it even today on countless Palestinian Facebook and family webpages. 

The contrast is not about genetics. It is about where a people locates its origin story. When internal clan narratives celebrate external migration while political narratives assert exclusive indigeneity, the tension deserves examination.

Here is the entire list of Palestinian surnames as identified by Robinson and where these families say they originated from:

Family/Clan/Tribe	Region(s)	Claimed Origins	Status
‘Abd al-Hadi	Nablus	Notable; claims descent from al-Hadi (Hashemite, from Mohammed).	Migrated (Arabian/External)
‘Amr	Hebron	Linked to Banu Amr, sub-tribe of Tamim or others.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
‘Atrash	Bethlehem	Deaf clan; possible Bedouin.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
‘Azza	Hebron	Clan; possible Jewish origins in traditions.	Indigenous
Abu Amash	Bayt Hanun	Clan; claims descent from Umash in Beirut (Lebanese ties) or from Kafr Qaddum (West Bank local).	Indigenous (if West Bank) or Migrated (if Lebanese) – assuming Indigenous based on Palestinian context
Abu Awda	Bayt Hanun	Clan; possible Egyptian or Sudanese roots, or from Awad in Palestine (local Levantine).	Migrated (Arabian/External) if Egyptian; Indigenous if local
Abu Ghawsh	Jerusalem	Clan; claims Kurdish origins.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Abu Hassanayn	Gaza	Clan; possible from Hassanayn in Syria or Iraq; linked to Husseini/Hashemite descent.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Abu Khusa	Gaza	Clan; possible from Khusa in Egypt or Transjordan.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Abu Mashaseeb	Dayr al-Balah	N/A (no new claims; possible local Gaza clan).	N/A
Abu Middain	Gaza	Clan; possible Egyptian origins.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Abu Naja	Rafah	Clan; claims descent from Naja in Arabia or Morocco; some link to Quraish.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Abu Samhadana	Rafah	Clan; Bedouin, with Sinai/Egyptian ties.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Abu Sharkh	Gaza	Possible east origins, implying Transjordanian.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Abu Taha	Gaza/Rafah/Khan Yunis	Clan; possible Yemeni or Egyptian roots.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Abu Warda	Gaza	Clan; possible from Warda in Arabia or Egypt.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Adwan	Gaza	Bedouin clan; claims descent from Adwan tribe in Jordan, Hejazi origins.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Agha	Gaza	Claims Turkish or Circassian descent from Ottoman era.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Ahfat	Nablus	N/A (no new claims; possible local Nablus notable).	N/A
Al-Ahmad	Nablus/Jenin	Common; possible descent from Ahmad (variant of Mohammed).	Indigenous
Al-Hajj Muhammad	Nablus	Pilgrim family; claims to Mohammed.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Al-Sayf	Nablus	Sword clan; possible warrior Sahaba links.	Indigenous
Al-Sha’ir	Rafah/Khan Yunis	Clan; claims poetic lineage, possibly from Hejaz tribes.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Alami	Jerusalem	Notable; claims Moroccan or Syrian roots.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Ashur	Khan Yunis	Possible Assyrian or Transjordanian roots.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Atallah	Hebron	Christian connotations; possible Ghassanid.	Levantine but Migrated (Pre-Islamic/Regional Arab)
Bakr	Gaza	Linked to Banu Bakr tribe, Adnanite Arabs from Hejaz.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Bani Himar	Jerusalem	N/A (linked to Banu Himar, possibly Hejazi tribe; scarce info).	N/A
Bani Murra	Jerusalem	Linked to Banu Murra, Hejazi tribe.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Bani Shamsa	Nablus	Clan; claims descent from Shamsa in Arabia (Qahatani or Adnani ties).	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Bani Zayd	Jerusalem	Clan; claims Arabian Peninsula origins, linked to Bani Zeid.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Barghouthi (Barghouti)	Ramallah/Al-Bira/Bethlehem	From Bani Zeid; descent from Omar ibn al-Khattab (Sahabi), via Egypt/Tunisia.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Baytuni	Jerusalem	Possible Christian origins (Beitunia ties).	Indigenous
Buhaisi	Gaza	Clan; possible from Buhaisi in Bahrain or Hejaz.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Burqawi	Nablus	From Burqa; local roots.	Indigenous
Dajani	Jerusalem	Notable a'yan; claims descent from Dajan tribe, possibly Hejazi or Yemeni.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Dakkak	Jerusalem	Notable; possible from Dakkak in Syria or local Jerusalem elite.	Migrated (Arabian/External) if Syrian; N/A otherwise
Darwish	Jerusalem	Sufi connotations; possible Yemeni or Hejazi.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Dira	Gaza	N/A (scarce; possible local Gaza clan or from Dira in Arabia).	N/A
Dughmush	Gaza	Clan; claims descent from Arab tribes in Iraq or Hejaz.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Duwaykat	Nablus	Clan; possible from Duwaykat in Nablus region (local).	Indigenous
Dweik	Hebron	Notable; claims descent from Dweik in Arabia or Ottoman ties.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Freij	Bethlehem	Possible Christian origins.	Indigenous
Hamad	Bethlehem	Praise; common Arab.	Indigenous
Hanun	Tulkarm	Compassionate; possible from Hanun in Syria or local.	Migrated (Arabian/External) if Syrian
Hasan	Jerusalem	Common name; possible descent from Hasan ibn Ali (grandson of Mohammed).	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Haniyya	Ramallah/Al-Bira	From Haniyah tribe, possible Yemeni.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Hilmi	Nablus	N/A (possible local notable; linked to Hilmi in Syria).	N/A
Hillis	Gaza	Clan; claims Yemeni tribal origins.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Hizbun	Bethlehem	N/A (scarce; possible Christian or local Bethlehem clan).	N/A
Husayni	Jerusalem	Claims descent from Husayn ibn Ali (grandson of Mohammed) via Yaman tribe roots.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Ja’bari	Hebron	Notable; claims descent from Jabir ibn Abdullah (Sahabi).	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Jarrar	Nablus	Clan; claims Jordanian or Hejazi ties.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Jaraf	Gaza	N/A (scarce; possible from Jaraf in Arabia).	N/A
Jawwad	Salfit	Generous; possible from Jawwad in Arabia or local.	N/A
Jayyusi	Nablus	Linked to Jays tribe, Arab Peninsula.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Jughan	Khan Yunis	N/A (scarce; possible local Khan Yunis clan).	N/A
Kafarna	Bayt Hanun	Possible Christian origins, implying Ghassanid (Yemeni-Arab Christian) ties.	Levantine but Migrated (Pre-Islamic/Regional Arab)
Kamal	Ramallah/Al-Bira	Perfection; notable, possible Turkish.	Indigenous
Kan’an (Kanaan)	Nablus	From Kanaan; claims Syrian origins.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Ka’raja	Jerusalem	N/A (scarce; possible from Ka'raja in Jerusalem local elite).	N/A
Khalaf	Ramallah/Al-Bira	Successor; possible caliphate ties.	Indigenous
Khalidi	Jerusalem	From Bani Khalid tribe; descent from Khalid ibn al-Walid (Sahabi).	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Khatib	Jerusalem	Preacher family; claims Quraysh or Sahaba ties.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Khoury	Ramallah/Al-Bira	Priest; Christian, Ghassanid Arab from Peninsula.	Levantine but Migrated (Pre-Islamic/Regional Arab)
Lahham	Jerusalem/Bethlehem	Butcher clan; possible Christian Ghassanid roots.	Levantine but Migrated (Pre-Islamic/Regional Arab)
Madhun	Gaza	Notable; descent from Bani Hashim al-Ashraf al-Husayni (Quraish), migrated Mecca-Medina-Ta'if, then various places including Palestine in Mamluk era.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Majayda	Khan Yunis	Clan; claims descent from Majayda in Arabia (possibly Qahtani).	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Mamar	Khan Yunis	N/A (scarce; possible from Mamar in Arabia or local).	N/A
Mansur	Nablus	Victorious; possible Ottoman ties.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Masri	Multiple	"Egyptian"; claims descent from Egyptian migrants in 19th century.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Mattar	Gaza	Possible Egyptian ties.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Milhem	Halhul	Notable; possible from Milhem in Arabia or local Hebron.	N/A
Mughani	Gaza	Clan; claims descent from Mughani in Arabia (Quraish or Hejaz).	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Muhtasib	Hebron	Market inspector; Ottoman-era role, possible Syrian roots.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Musleh	Ramallah/Al-Bira	Reformer; possible local Ramallah notable.	Indigenous
Nasir	Jabalya	Linked to Banu Nasr, possible Hejazi tribe.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Nasr	Qalqilya	Victory; possible Nasr tribe.	Indigenous
Natshi	Hebron	Notable; claims descent from Natshi in Arabia (Tamim or Quraish ties).	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Nimr	Nablus	Tiger clan; notable a'yan.	Indigenous
Nusayba (Nusseibeh)	Jerusalem	Descent from Ubadah ibn al-Samit (Sahabi) and Banu Khazraj (Ansar).	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Qasim	Nablus	Linked to Banu Qasim, Hashemite.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Qawasma	Hebron	Clan; claims Yemeni origins.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Rayyan	Nablus	Common; possible from Rayyan in Arabia (gate of Paradise link, symbolic).	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Reyyes (Rayyes)	Gaza	Notable family; claims Arab elite (a'yan) roots, possibly from Hejaz.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Rishmawi	Bethlehem	Christian; Ghassanid or Yemenite.	Levantine but Migrated (Pre-Islamic/Regional Arab)
Salah	Jerusalem	Linked to Saladin's era, Kurdish or Arab.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Samana	Jabalya	N/A (scarce; possible from Samana in Arabia).	N/A
Shaq’a	Nablus	Notable; claims Hejazi Arab roots.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Shahwan	Khan Yunis	Clan; claims descent from Shahwan in Arabia (Bedouin ties).	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Shawwa	Gaza	Notable; Ottoman-era origins, with claims to Syrian or Transjordanian descent.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Shawwaf	Gaza	Notable; possible from Shawwaf in Arabia or Syria.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Shami	Jenin	From Sham (Syria); Syrian origins.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Simhan	Jerusalem	N/A (scarce; possible from Simhan in Jerusalem local).	N/A
Suwayti	Jericho	Clan; possible from Suwayti in Arabia or local Jericho.	N/A
Ta’amra	Bethlehem	Bedouin; nomadic Arab, with Edomite/Nabatean ties via trade.	Indigenous
Tamimi	Hebron	From Banu Tamim tribe; Adnanite descent from Ishmael via Adnan.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Tawil	Ramallah/Al-Bira	Tall clan; possible Christian Ghassanid.	Levantine but Migrated (Pre-Islamic/Regional Arab)
Tayaha	Gaza (Tribal Confederation)	Bedouin; linked to Tayy tribe, claiming Adnanite descent from Ishmael, with Hejazi origins.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Tuqan (Touqan)	Nablus	Notable; linked to Ta'amira Bedouins, nomadic Arab roots.	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Uraqat	Jerusalem/Jericho	Bedouin clan from Huwaitat region (northwestern Arabia); ancestors from Medina (Hejaz).	Migrated (Arabian/External)
Yahya	Jenin	John; possible Christian links.	Indigenous
Ziyada	Ramallah/Al-Bira	Common; possible from Ziyada in Arabia or local Ramallah.	N/A

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