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.
A few days ago, Kan News in Israel reported from the Icon Mall, a luxury mall in Ramallah that opened earlier this year, noting that while it is only 15 minutes from Jerusalem, Israeli Jews are not allowed to shop there - and it has brand names not available in Israel like Sephora.
This stry caused an uproar from Palestinian journalists for the mall allowing the hated Israelis inside. The crime, of course, is "normalization."
The mall put out a lengthy statement explaining how they did not give permission for the segment
We are part of the heritage and fabric of this great Palestinian people, and we cannot abandon our values and principles for any reason.
All workers, employees, shop owners, and mall owners who form the work family in this Palestinian landmark—which we are proud to have achieved—are children of this people and from its cities, villages, and camps. Among them are dozens of released prisoners and families of martyrs and the wounded. No one can accept being part of a false and misleading Israeli narrative.
In the end, if the clear goals of these journalistic entities—which work to whitewash the face of the loathsome occupation—aim to split the Palestinian ranks, turn society against itself, and stir up public opinion against one of the largest Palestinian projects in recent years (which was visited by 4 million Palestinians in its first year), then we call on all the children of our people to thwart this opportunity, deal with the event as it is, and protect the acquired rights of dozens of investors, thousands of employees, and suppliers.
I haven't heard anything about "freedom of the press" from the usual suspects who get upset when Israel limits journalists in a war zone but Palestinians can explicitly bar Israeli journalists from reporting from Ramallah.
I recently came across an excerpt of an interview that podcaster Theo Von did with Tucker Carlson. Oddly enough, the theme of the interview is revealed at the very end of the clip:
Theo Von: Oh, I think it's brave to be able to speak up; sometimes if you're right or wrong, it's brave to try.
Tucker Carlson: It's our obligation to try. I was quiet for 30 years. I shouldn't have been I didn't want to fight but I shouldn't have been
Theo Von: People say like you get information wrong, but if information is given out that's wrong, then how do you expect someone to know accurate information?
You would be hard-pressed to find a more heartfelt defense of spreading misinformation. The implicit argument is that error is excusable so long as it is delivered with confidence and moral self-regard. That is precisely the license Carlson gives himself as he proceeds to traffic in fake history, scientific illiteracy, and anti-Israel propaganda, all wrapped in a tone of faux humility.
Carlson advances his own peculiar version of supersessionism. Rather than claiming Christianity replaces Judaism, he suggests something even more radical: that Judaism itself no longer exists, and that modern Jews have no meaningful connection to the Jews of antiquity or to the land of Israel. In a neat rhetorical trick, Carlson simply denies Jewish continuity altogether:
Theo Von: But because this Israel is not the Israel from the Bible, right? This is…
Tucker Carlson: I've tried to have this conversation. If it is, tell me how? What are you even talking about? And I'm not a theologian. I'm a freaking Episcopalian like I admit I know nothing but I do read the Bible every day, so I just don't see what you're talking about.
So you tell me what you're talking about. This is the Israel we read about. This is the inheritance of Abraham.
Theo Von: No way!
Tucker Carlson: How is it genetically the same? Are the people who live there now related to the people we read about in the Old Testament? If they are, we have DNA test. Tell me how that works? Oh, those are banned.
Okay. So then you tell me it's the same religion. How is it the same religion? There's no temple like, what are you even talking about?By the way, maybe there's a good answer that I just don't understand.
On at least one point, Carlson is refreshingly honest: he does not understand. Unfortunately, ignorance does not stop him from lecturing millions of listeners as though he does. His insistence that he “reads the Bible every day” is beside the point. This is not a theological question; it is a matter of history, archaeology, and population genetics—fields in which Carlson appears to have invested no effort at all.
Few modern anti-Israel talking points are as bizarre — or as revealing — as the persistent claim that “DNA tests are illegal in Israel.” As with many libels, the accusation begins with a thin thread of truth, wraps it in distortion, and emerges as another conspiracy theory designed to delegitimise Jewish identity and the State of Israel.
The truth is that such tests are not banned--they are regulated, nor is Israel the only country that does this. The fact that such tests exist—and are widely studied—fatally undermines Carlson’s argument. He also betrays a basic ignorance of Jewish diversity. Sweeping claims about “the Jews” ignore well-documented distinctions among Ashkenazic, Sephardic, and Mizrahi populations, all of which have been extensively studied.
although Ashkenazi Jews were found to differ slightly from Sephardic and Kurdish Jews, it is noteworthy that there is, overall, a high degree of genetic affinity among the three Jewish communities. Moreover, neither Ashkenazi nor Sephardic Jews cluster adjacent to their former host populations, a finding that argues against substantial admixture of males
The study shows that there is "clearly a shared genetic common ancestry among geographically diverse populations consistent with oral tradition and culture …and that traces back to the Middle East," said geneticist Sarah A. Tishkoff of the University of Pennsylvania, who was not involved in the study. "Jews have assimilated to some extent, but they clearly retain their common ancestry."
Carlson’s final move—arguing that the destruction of the Temple somehow severed Judaism from its own past—is just as foolish. Judaism did not end in 70 CE. It adapted, as living civilizations do. Jewish law, liturgy, language, and communal identity evolved organically from Second Temple Judaism, preserving continuity across catastrophe and exile. To suggest otherwise is not scholarship; it is historical vandalism.
But Carlson is not trying to educate. As with his claim that Benjamin Netanyahu called him a Nazi or that American taxpayers somehow “pay Netanyahu’s salary,” the goal is provocation, not accuracy. He gives his audience what it wants: grievance dressed up as insight, ignorance masquerading as courage.
Tucker Carlson’s performance is not merely uninformed—it is reckless. By presenting his lack of knowledge as a form of bravery, he invites his audience to confuse curiosity with certainty and skepticism with denial. Jews, Judaism, and Israel are not abstractions to be waved away with rhetorical questions and conspiratorial shrugs. They are among the most thoroughly documented continuities in human history. Carlson’s failure to grasp that is not a moral stand. It is a choice—and one that trades truth for applause.
Weeks after the Hamas October 7 attacks, the US, along with dozens of allies, put out a strong statement condemning antisemitism. The U.S. State Department’s office of the special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism asked Australia to sign on, but Canberra refused.
The signatories, many of them envoys on Jew-hatred, added that they “will do everything in our power to see that hatred against Jews is rebuked and that Jewish life flourishes in peace” and that “antisemitism and all forms of hate are incredibly harmful and unacceptable.”
There was nothing controversial in the statement's recommendations:
We call on governments to assess the needs and provide the necessary security assistance that Jewish communities require at this time of crisis.
We urge police and law enforcement to be vigilant of threats against Jews and to be aware that Jewish people around the world should not be held responsible for the words and actions of the Israeli or any other government, as illustrated by the non-legally binding International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance Working Definition of Antisemitism.
We denounce antisemitic acts taking place on some campuses and urge university administrators to condemn them and ensure that their Jewish students, like all other students, have the safety and support needed in these difficult times, to enjoy their right to education.
We urge civil society – including sports federations, religious communities, the cultural sector and academic circles – not to stand by or stay silent, but rather use their influence to effectively counter antisemitism and promote public acts of solidarity.
We are distressed about the online upsurge of antisemitic messages, disinformation, hate speech, and terrorist content, which instigate real world hate crimes and threaten the very social cohesion that binds our democratic societies together. We decry the social media platforms that amplify and multiply this content and call on them to act in line with the law and their own terms of service.
History has taught us that at times like these, we must speak up and cannot be indifferent.
JNS reported that a former State Department official said Australia’s decision to sit out was glaring. “It was a huge sign that even though the United States pushed them to sign onto this statement—it’s not like we are committing them to anything,” the former official said. “They refused. It’s like the top country that should be on there is not on there.”
That was under the Biden administration. The Trump administration has also tried to get Australia to prioritize the fight against antisemitism, and it has dragged its feet. This can be seen by parsing the very short readout of a meeting between Secretary of State Rubio and Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs Penny Wong in August:
Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke today with Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs Penny Wongto discuss issues in the Indo-Pacific and the Middle East, along with global efforts to combat antisemitism. The Secretary also underscored the importance of the U.S.-Australia alliance for upholding a free and open Indo-Pacific.
That is a very unusual detail for such a short statement, and it reflects US concern over Australia's reticence on doing anything concrete to fight Jew-hatred, even after the number of antisemitic incidents skyrocketed there after October 7.
The JNS article also details a huge amount of effort necessary for the US to pressure Australia to even appoint an envoy to combat antisemitism altogether. Australia's excuse was that if they were to do that they also needed an Islamophobia envoy and the Muslim community hadn't agreed on one. Yes, this was the bizarre reason given.
Bondi did not happen in a vacuum. The current government has been setting the stage for years.
The Lebanese Army and Defense Minister Michel Menassa staunchly defended the troops on Tuesday and denied any connection to Hezbollah, after the Israeli army accused one of the three victims of the Israeli strike on a car in the Saida region of being both a soldier and a member of the party.
The Israeli allegations, which claimed that Ali Abdallah, one of the three men killed on Monday, was both a soldier and a Hezbollah fighter, are “false,” a source within the army told L’Orient-Le Jour in the morning.
So why was he in the same car as Hezbollah terrorists?
“It is possible that the men accompanying the soldier were relatives or friends from his village,” clarified an army source.
Ah. Yes. That's it. Certainly. The soldier just hung out with terrorists, but it was all innocent.
Yesterday (22 December), in an airstrike on a vehicle near the village of Qnaitra, three Hezbollah operatives were eliminated. One of them, Ali Abdullah, was a Hezbollah operative who served concurrently in the Intelligence unit of the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF).
Abdullah had previously also served in the LAF’s anti-tank battalion—a unit responsible for training army battalions and special brigades in the use of various weapons systems. Its personnel undergo combat training courses that include raids, live fire, and the establishment of checkpoints. In his most recent role, as noted, he served in the LAF Intelligence unit. He was therefore an individual with significant military training and access to sensitive information and infrastructure.
The two other eliminated operatives were Mustafa Mohammad Balout, an operative in Hezbollah’s air defense array in the Sidon sector, and Hassan Hamdan. The publication of photos and a video showing the two together with Ali Abdullah singing a song in praise of Nasrallah points to a close personal relationship among the three.
This case is not exceptional. Hezbollah employs numerous officers and soldiers within the LAF — most of them from the Shiite community—who assist the organization directly or indirectly. Their affiliation with Hezbollah stems from a combination of ideological, sectarian, familial, and sometimes social motivations (such as originating from the same village). These soldiers serve as enablers for Hezbollah and its operations in southern Lebanon against Israel.
Hezbollah operates systematically to recruit officers from within the LAF. It can then exploit them to gain access to military infrastructure and assets, coordinate activities, and even operate under the cover of LAF patrols.
This is the sort of information that Western media simply never reports. The Lebanese Army needs to clean up not only Hezbollah, but its own ranks. And that is not realistically going to happen any time soon while they deny that some of their people are Hezbollah.
Public discussion of October 7 almost always begins with an immediate and rehearsed response: “But Gaza.” The implication is that comparing it settles moral and analytical questions — that a higher death toll retroactively shrinks the meaning of what came before it. It is a comparison that quietly neutralizes the event before it is examined: “1,200 Israelis killed versus tens of thousands of Palestinians dead in Gaza.” Framed this way, the attack is made to appear numerically small, even marginal, especially when set against the war that followed.
The number sounds small only when the denominator is inflated to include millions of people who were never attacked. It sounds small only when a one-day mass assault is compared to casualties accumulated over months of war, stripped of context, intent, and time scale. And it sounds small only when the participation of multiple armed groups and civilians who crossed the border to loot, burn, abduct, and kill is quietly erased.
But Palestinian terror groups did not attack Israel as an abstract whole. They invaded Israel, were eventually stopped, and were only able to attack the places they physically reached. Any serious attempt to understand the scale of October 7 has to measure it against the population that was actually exposed to the violence — not against an entire country that was never breached.
October 7 was not limited by restraint. It was limited by geography — by fences, distance, and time. Where attackers succeeded in entering civilian spaces, the result was devastating and systematic.
In one morning, Hamas and accompanying other Palestinian terror groups and civilian attackers:
Killed or abducted roughly 1 in 10 of the people they physically reached
And when the injured are included, destroyed the lives of nearly half of everyone they reached — through killing, kidnapping, or injury.
In some communities, such as Nir Oz, the impact was far more extreme, with close to one in four residents killed or taken hostage, before the injured are even counted.
This was not collateral damage.
This was not urban warfare.
It was population-level annihilation wherever access existed, limited only by geography and time.
In recent weeks, notable figures on the right have tried to either mainstream anti-Semitism or look away. Many conservatives and Christians find themselves put to the test, no longer able to ignore the problem metastasizing before them. Nearly a century ago, in a small upstate New York factory town, Americans faced a similar test—and passed. That story is worth revisiting today.
On Saturday, September 22, 1928, four-year-old Barbara Griffiths disappeared in Massena, New York, a rural factory town along the St. Lawrence River, which divides America and Canada. Frantic search parties of police, firefighters, and townspeople scoured the woods, fields, and streets, peering through storefront windows looking for Barbara.
As day gave way to night, fear gave way to speculation and scapegoating when one Massena resident told law enforcement that Jews were rumored to kidnap and ritually sacrifice children in the region that the resident had immigrated from. The blood libel, an ancient pagan and Christian pretext for violence against Jews, had come to America.
The blood libel, the charge that Jews kidnap, kill, and eat non-Jews, was first documented in the first century. The charge of ritual cannibalism was also made against early Christians. The blood libel resurfaced in the Middle Ages and has since been used as a pretext for Jewish persecution. The week Barbara disappeared, a New York Times headline noted “Anti-Jewish Agitation” in Europe over “Ritual Murder Rumors.”
Iran’s conduct strips away any illusion about priorities. Even amid water shortages, electricity failures and economic contraction, the regime has channelled vast resources into instruments of attack. Mohammad Javad Zarif’s recent acknowledgement on Al Jazeera that roughly $500 billion was spent on the nuclear programme was striking precisely because it carried no regret. The expenditure was framed as ideological defiance. The moral judgement, drawn by others, contrasts that figure with empty reservoirs and decaying infrastructure. The choice was deliberate.
In Tehran’s Palestine Square, a digital clock counts down to the envisioned destruction of the State of Israel. The symbol is grotesque, yet clarifying. While Israel has invested relentlessly in shelters, early warning systems and civilian resilience, Iran has provided its population with little protection from the wars it seeks. Iranian friends of mine abroad speak quietly of families without shelters, without warning systems, without any sense of personal safety.
Israel harbours no reciprocal obsession. During the war, it possessed the capacity to push further, to pursue regime change directly. It chose restraint. Its focus remains survival and protection rather than ideological conquest. Even under fire, its economy functioned. Its society absorbed shock without collapse. That resilience frustrates Tehran, which speaks openly of breaking morale and dismantling prosperity. The effort has failed, so far.
The wider world should observe this regime with the same clarity Israel is forced to apply. Iran’s leadership is so consumed by the project of destroying Israel that it accepts, even embraces, the sacrifice of its own people as collateral. Chronic water shortages, failing infrastructure, economic exhaustion and the absence of basic civilian protection are not unintended consequences but tolerated costs. The clock in Palestine Square, counting down to 2040, makes this plain. It is not a threat of imminence but a declaration of endurance, a statement that the campaign is generational rather than tactical.
That obsession does not stop at Israel’s borders. Across Europe, including in the United Kingdom, Iranian regime institutions, networks and operatives continue to function openly or semi-openly, engaged in intimidation, subversion and preparation. From European capitals to Latin America, including Venezuela, the Islamic Republic has built a lattice of influence dedicated to disruption, coercion and violence abroad. Israel stands on the front line of this project, but it is not its final destination.
The clock continues to tick. One can only hope that the regime which built its future around such a promise is gone long before it reaches zero.
For years, the leftist mindset has seen Jews as possessors of “white privilege” and Israel as an exemplar of “settler colonialism” and therefore as “oppressors” – hence the absurdity of “Queers for Palestine” and the insistence, even from ministers in the Albanese government, that October 7 should be seen “in context”.
What else can explain the government’s increasingly harsh denunciations of Israel, its alacrity in issuing visas to largely unvetted people from Gaza, its secret repatriation of “ISIS brides”, and its recognition of Palestine in a massive concession to the “river to the sea” protesters?
The basic problem with the Albanese government is the leftist instincts that constantly distort its moral lens.
Hence the government’s inability to have an envoy against anti-Semitism without also appointing one against an almost non-existent Islamophobia; the PM’s apparent greater comfort in Beijing than in Washington; and the government’s inability to open its mouth without acknowledging “country”, or the neurotic flying of three flags as some kind of atonement for the original settlement of Australia.
Maybe the Bondi massacre will turn out to have been a “road to Damascus” moment, with Anthony Albanese and his ministers henceforth ruthless and relentless in monitoring hate preachers and closing them down if they utter so much as a word from the Koran urging the killing of Jews; in comprehensively vetting visa applicants to ensure that their beliefs and their social media history really are consistent with the democratic instincts Australians should be able to rely on; and in forever putting behind them any ambivalence about our country and its symbols, such as the flag, Australia Day and Anzac Day.
Never again, let’s hope, will we get from this government vacuous slogans about “our diversity is our strength”, as if there’s something embarrassing about our Anglo-Celtic core culture and our fundamental Judaeo-Christian ethos.
Yet the PM’s inability to apologise for the government’s failures, and inability to say definitely Islamist hate slogans will be as banned as nazi salutes, does not augur well.
Australia’s immigration program need not discriminate on the basis of race or religion, but it should discriminate on the basis of values if we are to last as a free and fair society.
As the citizenship pledge goes, all of us must be absolutely committed “to Australia and its people, whose democratic beliefs I share, whose rights and liberties I respect, and whose laws I will uphold and obey”.
It’s a modern version of Ruth’s biblical declaration that “your people will be my people and your God my God”. People who can’t say it, mean it, and live it, should not be here.
Hours before the Bondi Beach attack, Ahmad Ghadiri Abyaneh - the son of Mohammad-Hassan Ghadiri Abyaneh, a former Iranian ambassador to Australia - posted a cryptic message on X condemning Jewish Hanukkah celebrations as a "satanic ritual."
His post framed Jewish religious observance as a threat requiring "societal defense," citing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's doctrine of "mobilized civil resistance" against perceived enemies of Islam.
This echoed the Iranian regime's systematic use of religious language to legitimize violence against Jewish and Western targets.
The cumulative evidence surrounding the Bondi Beach massacre strongly suggests a conducive environment shaped by Iranian ideology.
The attack should be understood as part of a global campaign of intimidation linked to state-sponsored extremist doctrine.
A Pennsylvania elementary school principal is facing termination by his school district after he accidentally recorded himself making antisemitic remarks in a voicemail to a Jewish parent.
Philip Leddy, the principal of the Lower Gwynedd Elementary School in Montgomery County, confirmed to the Wissahickon School District that he had made the antisemitic remarks heard on the voicemail message Friday morning after he believed he had disconnected the call , according to an email sent to the district’s parents.
In the recording, Leddy made a reference to “Jew camp,” and told another staff member at the school that the parent has “Jew money” and claimed that “they control the banks,” according to the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia. Later, when asked whether the parent was a lawyer, Leddy responded, “the odds are probably good.”
Garden variety antisemitism, straight out of the Protocols. Pennsylvania? Probably a right-wing lunatic, right?
Um, no:
Leddy was hired as the principal for the Lower Gwynedd Elementary School in 2023 after previously serving as committee chair of the district’s Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Committee, according to a since-deleted profile for him on the school’s website.
It is time to retire the fiction that anti-racism programs reduce antisemitism. The truth is the opposite: when you falsely divide the world into oppressor and oppressed, the Jews are slotted into the place that gives people permission to hate them.
The anti-Zionism of the Left is not separate from antisemitism - it is the only way their antisemitism can be expressed in public. But as Philip Leddy shows, progressive bigotry against Jews is independent of Israel. It is just felt and spoken when it is believed that no one is listening.
This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For 20 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.
KeepOlim: Helping New Immigrants Thrive in Israel
-
[image: KeepOlim: Helping New Immigrants Thrive in Israel]
KeepOlim helps new immigrants to Israel overcome aliyah challenges by
offering community support...
Review of the Year 2025
-
Over 2025, Point of No Return published 372 posts, bringing the total
number to 7,649. This year the blog marked 20 years since it was
established to ga...
Does The American Right Know Where It's Going?
-
I see too many confusing rhetoric and statements coming from the American
Right, davka rather similar to the anti-Israel Antisemitic ideology of the inter...
Merry Christmas to all of our Christian Friends
-
Merry Christmas Eve to all of our Christian Friends! Here is a Dry Bones
Golden Oldie, by Sali the LSW. (Long Suffering Wife). Have a happy
holiday, an...
The Religion of the Strong Horse
-
“When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature they will like
the strong horse,” Osama bin Laden said at the beginning of his talk taking
c...
How Oren Yiftachel Sees Zionism
-
How do Israeli academic anti-colonialists who identify with the cause of a
liberated Palestine view Zionism? What is their conceptual thinking? How do
th...
Now What?
-
Today, Jews cannot walk down the street in North America, Europe, or even
Australia without the possibility of being spat on, beaten, or even
murdered. Cou...
Closing Jews Down Under Website
-
With a heavyish heart I am closing down the website after ten years.
It is and it isn’t an easy decision after 10 years of constant work. The
past...
‘Test & Trace’ is a mirage
-
Lockdown II thoughts: Day 1 Opposition politicians have been banging on
about the need for a ‘working’ Test & Trace system even more loudly than
the govern...
Thursday, December 25, 2025
Elder of Ziyon
Buy 
.jpg)
.jpg)
