Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, January 20, 2025

01/20 Links Pt2: How the left’s missteps shaped Israel’s struggles; Poll: 21% of US voters support Hamas over Israel in conflict; Palestine Red Crescent Spokesman Photographed with Terrorists

From Ian:

How the left’s missteps shaped Israel’s struggles

The 2025 hostage deal: A tragic moral dilemma
In the Israel-Hamas hostage deal, two good values are pitted against each other and are mutually exclusive. On one side is the profound Jewish value of redeeming captives (pidyon shvuyim), based on deep compassion for victims and their families. On the other side is the equally compelling need to prevent future murders, deter further hostage-taking and avoid another Oct. 7 tragedy. The left has championed the former value—redeeming captives—at the expense of the latter, which it has made sacrosanct. They have pressured for a deal at almost any cost.

The success of the left’s marketing campaign has been striking, wielding the same PR machinery that rallied relentless domestic and global pressure for the Shalit deal and more recently against judicial reform. The influence blitz turned the hostage issue into an untouchable ideal; it was a PR triumph, practically transforming the hostage issue into a form of worship. It succeeded in swaying many Jews in Israel and abroad to focus on one value while inadvertently sidelining the other and thereby pressuring for a hostage deal even at a very high price.

Yet, the costs of this deal are staggering; not only an IDF withdrawal from strategic areas that will allow Hamas to rebuild and restock, but in the first stage alone, Israel is expected to release 1,904 Palestinian prisoners—many of them mass murderers and attempted murderers. These include 737 individuals serving life sentences for heinous crimes, such as one responsible for six murders and another for forty-five. Disturbingly, 47 of these prisoners are repeat offenders—terrorists previously released in the 2011 Shalit deal who later committed additional attacks. The numbers paint a grim picture. Hard evidence from too many past deals provides hard evidence of what we can expect: for one Israeli saved, Gilad Shalit, well over 1,000 were murdered. Eighty-two percent of the 1,000 terrorists freed in the Shalit exchange returned to terrorism, according to the Israel Security Agency. Applying similar math to the 2025 deal sends chills down the spine.

The deal forced upon us by the left considers the deep, real and tragic pain of the hostages and their families. But what of the unspeakable anguish of those whose loved ones were murdered by the terrorists now set free? What of the grief of the families of soldiers who died heroically—who fought to eradicate Hamas, to make evil pay and to prevent another Oct. 7, only to see their sacrifices undermined as the terrorists grow emboldened?

And what of the pain of the civilians and families who will inevitably suffer when these released monsters strike again—those who will be murdered or abducted because of this decision?

The pattern of mistakes
The left’s idealism, while rooted in genuine desire for peace and justice, has repeatedly ignored the harsh realities of the region. These decisions have not only cost lives but have emboldened those who seek Israel’s destruction. The right has consistently warned against these dangers, often standing alone as the defenders of Israel’s security. The right has been consistently and unmistakably right since 1993. The left has consistently left reality behind and led the Jewish people to multiple disasters.

Maybe there is something we don’t know; I hope so. But our people and leaders need to exercise better judgment, using wisdom and humility to ensure that critical decisions reflect both practical reality and higher moral principles.

The way forward
Stopping the left’s destructive influence requires an honest reckoning. Strategic decisions are always complex and filled with difficult moral calculations, but security must always trump sentimentality and naivete. As history shows, Israel’s survival hinges on pragmatic, hard-headed policies that prioritize the safety of its citizens over fleeting hopes of appeasement driven by the blind idealism of one side that ignores the antisemitic reality of the other. It is time to learn from the past, to stop repeating the mistakes that have cost so much and to stand united as one people in the face of an enduring threat.

Our children have now paid the price for the mistakes of the older and unwise generation. Israeli youth rose to the occasion as Jewish lions. As Israeli President Isaac Herzog said, “We saw how the ‘TikTok Generation’ emerged as a generation of historic strength, whose bravery will be etched in the annals of Israeli history.” But now we grapple with whether the superhuman sacrifices of the soldiers and their families, while unquestionably heroic, will achieve the lasting impact they fought for.

While it’s too early to definitively label this deal a disaster—especially since there’s a strong likelihood that Hamas will undermine the agreement—it is both scary and deeply unsettling to consider what may lie ahead. While the prospect of bringing hostages home is incredibly heartening, decisions must ultimately be guided by calculated probabilities and strategic foresight.

At this time, our whole people is in a collective state of trauma brought on by the Oct. 7 massacre, almost a year and a half of war, missiles and hostages, and the devastating antisemitic response and betrayal of so much of the world.

Will the left at last fulfill another Jewish value, that of having the humility to admit its mistakes and stop pressuring for dangerous policies? If they do, two critical outcomes will be achieved: Jewish lives will be safer, and peace with our neighbors will be closer.

Cary Nelson and Joe Lockard: The Decline and Fall of Katherine Franke

When Columbia issued its correction, Franke had a clear professional responsibility as a faculty member to withdraw her claim about Israeli students. Instead, she ignored an ethical imperative to withdraw a false accusation that placed Israeli students under a cloud of suspicion and possibly endangered their physical safety. It is no accident that Franke decided to post her statement on the AAUP’s Academe blog, which has long been a committed vehicle for pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel opinion.

Threats to academic freedom in the United States arise largely from structural causes. These include the casualisation of academic labour, deterioration of faculty governance provisions, corporatisation of research enterprise, dismissal of humanities and arts studies, and so on. That is not the picture one gets from the Academe blog, where the primary obsession has been campus reaction to the Gaza war.

Readers of the blog in 2024 will have learned that a Holocaust-themed campus opera production embodies Zionist silencing over a “genocide” in Gaza, that there is no difference between free speech and campus building take-overs and obstruction, and that a university’s study of and proposed action against antisemitism not only suppresses political speech but undermines “the legitimacy and autonomy of democratic institutions, including universities, public K-12 schools, and unions.”

In short, browsers of the official AAUP blog will discover that Jewish forces manipulate campus life and pose the most pressing threat to US academic freedom. It is an old conspiracy in new clothes. The Academe blog has published dozens of articles that constitute a false martyrology of campus free speech over Gaza. The uncritical republication of Katherine Franke’s statement alleging her forced retirement is simply the latest example of this dispiriting trend—a consequence of lax editorial scrutiny and insufficient critical thought.

The question then turns to why an organ of the American Association of University Professors would publish a falsification of such an easily discernible record. That editorial credulity speaks to an a priori willingness to believe some preferred voices rather than ask searching questions. This same credulity led Franke to both endorse and intensify anti-Zionist myths that have proliferated on campuses since 7 October 2023. The editorial credulity represents a collective delusion; Franke’s represents a more personal one.

Franke first attracted international attention in 2018 when she was denied entry to Israel on the basis of its law allowing the government to bar entry to BDS leaders. Israel later reversed its ruling and no other faculty members were affected. But in the way that all anti-Israel news acquires an infinite lifetime, her initial denial stands as permanent evidence of her alleged martyrdom. It was evidently time to breathe new life into this self-serving legend.

Poll: 21% of US voters support Hamas over Israel in conflict

Twenty-one percent of American voters say they support Hamas over Israel in Jerusalem’s ongoing war against the U.S.-designated terrorist organization, according to a Harvard CAPS/Harris poll published over the weekend.

Harvard/Harris surveyed a representative sample of 2,650 registered voters on Jan. 15-16. (The reported margin of error for the total sample is plus or minus 1.9 percentage points at a confidence level of 95%.)

Asked “Do you support more Israel or more Hamas?” in the war, 75% of Democrats backed the Jewish state, while 25% expressed more approval for the Palestinian terrorist group. Among Republican voters, 81% said they supported Jerusalem more, compared to 19% for Hamas.

Support for Hamas polled the highest among the 25 to 34 age group, where almost one-third said they favored the terrorists over Israel.

The Harvard/Harris survey also found that a majority of the American public believes that the negotiations led by the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump led to the Israel-Hamas ceasefire.

Fifty-seven percent of respondents said that Hamas “agreed to the deal because of negotiations” led by Trump’s team, compared to 43% who thought that outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden made it happen.

Eighty-four percent of Republicans said Trump was responsible, compared to 75% of Democrats who thought that Biden’s negotiations led Hamas to accept the truce. Among independent voters, 60% credited Trump and 40% Biden.

The vast majority of respondents, 82%, said they backed “the ceasefire deal reached between Israel and Hamas which aims to end the war in Gaza and release hostages.”

Support for the deal was higher among Democrats, 87% of whom said they backed the deal, with 81% of Republicans expressing approval.

01/20 Links Pt1: Destroying the Illusion of Israel-Hamas Equivalence; Trump to Halt Funding to UNRWA; Correcting the Record on the IDF and Lethal Targeting

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: Destroying the Illusion of Israel-Hamas Equivalence

On Sunday, this trend was no longer puzzling. If you were going to support Hamas in the war against the IDF, you had to perform the following mental gymnastics: The worse Hamas behaved, the worse you thought of Israel—or you’d be forced to face your own twisted depravity for instinctively siding with Hamas.

Hamas soldiers changed out of their civilian clothes and into their uniforms and swarmed out around hospitals along with gleeful civilians and “journalists” who’d taken off their media vests to join the celebrations—none of which were taking place among rubble and famine, despite al Jazeera’s claim that Israel destroyed about three out of every four homes in the strip.

The world got to see a very different Gaza on Sunday. “Khaybar, Khaybar, ya Yahood” they chanted, a popular refrain commemorating a famous Muslim massacre of Jews.

So Hamas sent back to their families Romi Gonen, Emily Damari, and Doron Steinbrecher. Who is Israel releasing in return, as demanded by Hamas? There’s Zakaria Zubeidi, who was involved in a terror attack in which six people were killed. There’s Mohammad Abu Warda, in prison for his role in bombings that killed 45. Mohammed Naifeh was serving consecutive life sentences for attacks that killed five. Three members of a Hamas cell responsible for the deaths of 30 innocents are reportedly on the list. And on it goes.

To be sure, not every Palestinian inmate has this much blood on his hands. But more than enough do to make one cringe at the clash of values between the two armies.

Israelis are going into this deal with eyes open; they are not naïve. They just believe that life is valuable, though their enemy does not. The asymmetry has clearly inspired some in the pro-Hamas camp to manufacture a false equivalence. The cease-fire has made fools of those who believed it.

Richard Kemp: Hamas terrorists have stopped dressing as women. They’ll soon have to start again

Hamas have been trying to replace their dead terrorists with untrained and inexperienced volunteers from the population. Their capabilities will be boosted by the release of over 1,000 terrorist prisoners in the first stage of the deal alone, some of whom will be battle-hardened.

While they remain free from IDF attack, Hamas will be working overtime to regroup and rebuild their lost strength.

Any and all suitable construction materials and humanitarian supplies allowed into the Strip will be immediately re-purposed for military use rather than to alleviate the suffering of civilians whose houses have been destroyed as a result of Hamas’s war.

They will continue to operate the weapons manufacturing factories that have not been taken apart and do all they can to replenish weapons and ammunition from outside. That is why the IDF must retain its stranglehold on the border with Egypt as well as the blockade of the coastline.

Outside Gaza, Hamas and their sponsors and supporters will be aiming to bring international pressure to bear on Israel to prevent a resumption of hostilities, while holding on to as many hostages as they feel they need for longer term leverage.

In these circumstances the sooner Israel can return to the attack the better, reducing time and opportunity Hamas will have to increase the dangers they still present.

The fight will certainly have to be resumed. It is for Jerusalem to calibrate when and how that is done, balancing the maximum number of hostages that can be got out against the growing risks presented by the breathing space Hamas can be allowed.

Into that equation will also have to be factored wider strategic imperatives, not least a potential strike on Iran’s nuclear programme which now becomes a more realistic proposition with Donald Trump back in the White House.

Stephen Pollard: The picture of Hamas surrounding the hostages says everything

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. And in truth, I really don’t need to write this piece at all. All I need to do to make my point is to publish the picture above. Because it says almost everything that needs to be said not just about Hamas, about the hostage release, and about what is happening in Gaza but also about the state of the West and about those useful idiots in the West who march in support of Hamas.

All that in one photograph.

It’s not just that it shows a braying army of armed men and one solitary woman (although there were, of course, two other women in the car who were also being released from 471 days of captivity). Yes, that matters, because when we focus on Hamas’ bestial behaviour we sometimes forget that it is an Islamist group which hates women and uses them as chattels – in this case, as valuable hostages to be traded. And we should never forget that, because not only do we need to understand Hamas in order to defeat it, we need to understand this in order to set about defeating its support in the West.

It’s not just that it’s another example, on its own sick terms, of how professional Hamas is in how it operates. This was not some spontaneous gathering of an out of control mob but a carefully planned piece of propaganda, designed down to the last detail to show the world that Hamas is in control. Take the ‘goody bags’ given to each of the released hostages, with a map of Gaza, pictures from their captivity and a perverse certificate marking their time as hostages. These weren’t assembled ad hoc on the day but will have been plotted long before for the moment of release – as was every other element of the scene when the hostages were handed over to the Red Cross.

But sitting here now, the day after the hostage release and two days after tens of thousands demonstrated their support for Hamas in London (and don’t you dare try and tell me that’s not what they were doing) it’s that picture – and the other image of a Hamas fighter on the roof of a Red Cross van - which tells the real story. The story, that is, of how so many in the West are taken in by tales of resistance and colonialism and have bought into the idea that they are on ‘the right side of history’ as they march with their keffiyehs and chant From the River to the Sea.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

Israel is seen more favorably than CNN and the EU by Americans - and young Americans now support Israel more than most other age groups!

A Harvard CAPS/Harris poll was just released, and it shows that Americans remain strongly pro-Israel.

Taken on January 15-16, the survey asked 2,650 US voters a series of questions about the political environment ahead of President-elect Trump's inauguration today.

One question asked how favorably Americans judged a series of institutions:

Israel is seen more favorably by Americans than the European Union, CNN. MSNBC and X. The gap of favorable over unfavorable is better for Israel than the US Supreme Court, the Department of Justice and Fox News. (If you calculate the percentage of favorable answers over all people who held an opinion, Israel also edges Facebook.)

Given the huge amount of anti-Israel reporting and coverage of anti-Israel events for the past 15 months, this is pretty remarkable.

Another response is perhaps even more surprising:

It is not surprising that 4 out of 5 Americans support Israel over Hamas. But the age breakdown shatters the impression that has been given that young Americans are inexorably becoming more anti-Israel.

A higher percentage of US voters 18-24 say they support Israel than any other age group under 55!

The pattern of younger people becoming more and more anti-Israel appears to have been broken by Gen Z.

This is something worth investigating. Did the pro-Hamas college encampments turn them off? Are they now getting most of their news from social media and therefore not as exposed to the toxic hate from the mainstream media? Is hasbara actually working for the first time in decades?

I hope some organizations look at this further (and I wish I had the resources to do this myself.)

(h/t JW)

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

Is all aid entering Gaza being inspected for weapons by Israel? At least some appears to go straight through Rafah

This photo bothers me a great deal.

This and many other photos taken yesterday indicate that "humanitarian aid" is bring transported directly into Gaza from Egypt without going through the extensive inspections that are done at the Kerem Shalom border crossing.

This is the Rafah crossing normally open only for people. The gate on the right that the trucks are going through is only opened for exceptional circumstances and, officially, those goods are inspected by the Egyptian army or the NGOs there. Israel is not in the loop.

The Kerem Shalom crossing has an opening from the Egyptian side. It is two miles to the south of the Rafah crossing. When I visited there over ten years ago, it was merely a dirt road from Egypt blocked by a cheap fence and a mound of earth. Satellite photos taken recently show that there is little (if any) infrastructure on the Egyptian side of Kerem Shalom.

The the past seven months hundreds of trucks of aid from Egypt has gone through Israel where they were inspected at Kerem Shalom for the south and Crossing 96 for northern Gaza.

The Egyptian Gazette, on the other hand, reports:

The flow of humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip began on Sunday with the first moments of the ceasefire taking effect, facilitated through the Rafah Border Crossing.

A source in North Sinai confirmed that approximately 300 aid trucks entered through the Rafah crossing en route to the Al-Auja and Kerem Shalom crossings, the official Middle East News Agency (MENA) reported on Tuesday.

Of these, 250 trucks are set to reach the Al-Auja crossing and 50 to the Kerem Shalom crossing for inspection before entering Gaza as an initial batch. Meanwhile, hundreds of additional trucks remain stationed at the Rafah crossing, awaiting the green light to proceed.

The trucks carried large quantities of relief supplies, including food, fuel, and medical supplies, tailored to meet local needs in coordination between the Egyptian Red Crescent, the Palestinian Red Crescent, and security authorities.

This makes it sound like most trucks do get inspected by Israel, but it makes no sense that the trucks directly entering Gaza are being routed back outside and then into Gaza again. The "Al Auja crossing" is the Nitzana crossing between Israel and Egypt, 25 miles to the south of Rafah. There is no way trucks enter Gaza and then go back out to Nitzana.

Reuters reported, "The aid trucks were using the Kerem Shalom entry point pending completion of maintenance at the Rafah border crossing into southern Gaza from Egypt, the sources said." But again, the photos and videos at Rafah tell a different story.

The best I can guess is that some goods are getting routed through Israel for inspection but others, including fuel and at least some dry goods, are being allowed to enter Gaza directly through Rafah.

There is no question that the goods entering Gaza are being skimmed or taken wholesale by Hamas before they get to the people. Hamas maintains its economic strength through this aid. The international community has been doing everything they could to stymie Israel from blocking Hamas from stealing the aid.

Egyptian authorities control Rafah, and are said to do their own inspections there. However, there are clearly no giant X-ray machines like Israel has in Rafah. Egyptian officials are also subject to bribes and the entire crossing regime is corrupt, as we saw with the huge fees Egyptian officials extorted from Gazans trying to leave.

I have seen no direct evidence that weapons have been smuggled into Gaza through Rafah between October 7 2023 and May 2024 when Israel took control of the corridor. The IDF is still there, at least for now, but again they do not have the facilities to inspect trucks inside Gaza.

COGAT has not answered by queries about this as of this writing.

Small arms and Iranian cash can certainly be hidden in the large containers of aid we are seeing going straight into Gaza.

How does anyone know that that isn't happening?

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

Mustafa Barghouti, Palestinian "moderate" advocating non-violence in English on @CNN, condones "armed resistance" and Hamas terrorism in Arabic

Hamas held a meeting in Doha along with top officials of major terror groups Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Democratic Front, the Popular Front-General Command and the Palestinian People’s Party, to talka about a "day after" scenario in Gaza.

Pointedly, no one from Fatah attended.

But also attending this meeting was Mustafa Barghouti, the head of the "National Initiative," sitting two seats away from the head of Islamic Jihad and four seats from Khalil al-Hayya, the Hamas official who praised October 7 and vows to continue more attacks until Israel is destroyed.

Barghouti sat in a place of honor at the front of the room along with major terrorist leaders.

According to Hamas, the participants of the meeting saluted all the "military wings of the Palestinian resistance factions" as well as those who shot rockets and drones to Israel from Yemen, Iran, and Iraq.

Barghouti is considered a "moderate." He is a frequent guest on Western cable news shows; he was interviewed by Fareed Zakaria of CNN on Sunday and by Christiane Amanpour last week.

While in Doha he appeared to agree with Hamas that October 7 was a great accomplishment; when he returned to Ramallah a day later he told Zakaria that he espouses non-violence and even claimed, ludicrously, that he convinced Hamas to abandon violence for five years in Gaza before Israel attacked.

Why is Hamas inviting him to this meeting that supports violence against Jews unless he tacitly agrees with them?

While he doesn't say it in English, his "National Initiative" movement (which appears to be tiny) says that it does support armed resistance "as long as international humanitarian law is respected." Barghouti does not elaborate on exactly what that means - many Palestinians have claimed that terrorism is legal under international law - but in this interview he is asked to clarify whether he supports the October 7 attacks and he weas careful not to say anything negative about them, saying that Palestinian people have the "right to resist." He later emphasized that he does not say he supports "peaceful popular resistance" but merely "popular resistance," saying others ascribed the word "peaceful" to him, and then admits that he believes that "armed resistance" is a legitimate and complementary component to popular resistance.

His refusal to condemn Hamas rapes, murders and burning families indicates that Brghouti is not the peace-loving person he claims to be on CNN.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

01/19 Links: Hostages Romi Gonen, Emily Damari, Doron Steinbrecher return to Israel after 471 days

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: An obscene spectacle

To all those in the west who have perpetrated the lie of Israeli genocide in Gaza for the past 15 months: look at the pictures of the mob surrounding the three Israel women hostages who were freed today, and see thousands of Gazans who are well-fed, well-groomed and well-dressed.

What do you have to say now about the murderous libel you have perpetrated against the Israeli victims of these people, the lie that the Israelis were deliberately starving them, that they were the victims of Israeli-induced famine, that the Jews were behaving like Nazis? Do you have a scintilla of shame or regret about what you have done in spreading this foul incitement? Do you even understand what you saw today? Or are you too busy cheering on instead the pictures of those “pro-Palestinian” hate-marchers in London yesterday, dozens of whom were arrested by the police because they were absolutely determined to harass and terrorise British Jews at their synagogue Sabbath services nearby?

Look at that horrifying footage of those Gaza mobs, those enormous potential lynch mobs jeering and threatening the three Israeli women as they were handed over to the Red Cross — the same mobs who abused the live hostages and desecrated the bodies of the murdered ones when they were all dragged into Gaza after the October 7 massacre; look at that footage and then tell us all again that the vast majority of Palestinian Arabs in Gaza are innocent civilians and victims of the Israelis.

Listen to those mobs chanting ecstatically for the murder of Jews in a willed repetition of the slaughter of Jews by Islam’s founder Mohammed in 7th century Khybar; then watch Sky News report this as a “celebration,” and then begin to understand the depravity of the western media that’s sanitised this barbarism for 15 months and demonised its victims.

Look at the thousands who have emerged in Hamas uniform and armed to the teeth, vowing to carry out more and more October 7 massacres until every Jew is dead and Israel is destroyed — Hamas murder squads loudly declaring that they will use the ceasefire to regroup, rearm and attack Israel; and then listen to the politicians hailing this development as the beginning of peace.

Look with breaking heart at the poignant joy and indescribable relief from suffering of the families reunited with their newly freed girls — how can this be anything other than a source not just of joy but also shuddering horror at what they have endured and at who knows what scars they will bear for the rest of their lives; and a source also of the most profound agony over the vast majority of the Israeli captives, both alive and dead, who remain incarcerated as pawns of these Palestinian Arab psychopaths, and who will now be used to eke out further unbearable distress among the hostages and their families, and to extort and manipulate the Israelis into ensuring that Hamas survive, regroup and resume the business of genocide.

Jake Wallis Simons: The West stands on the brink of destruction

Over coffee a little while ago, during one of her visits to London from her home in Israel, the British public commentator Melanie Phillips fixed me with her characteristic warm and penetrating gaze and remarked: “As you know, Jake, in my career there hasn’t been a hill I haven’t died on.”

Her penetrating mind is familiar to everybody who knows her work; but her warmth is most tangible in person. Nonetheless, both qualities come across strongly in her new book, The Builder’s Stone: How Jews and Christians built the West – and why only they can save it, which reads like both an anguished letter to friends and a desperate map of blood-stained battlefields.

Melanie’s basic thesis is that the West can only be saved by restoring to its rightful place its foundation stone of Judeo-Christian faith. Prescribing religion as a remedy for a sick society? In these days of arrests of people praying in silence outside abortion clinics, this is one of the least fashionable and most badly defended hills of all. We have arrived at Melanie’s Little Bighorn. Along the way, however, are many other hills and she defiantly circles the wagons on each.

This is risky writing. Melanie raises her musket at the destruction of childhood in a tsunami of “all must win prizes” and “drag queen story hour”, the liberalisation of drugs and the decline of the family.

She also takes aim at the collapse of religion, demographic malaise, the decline of Western deterrence, the denial of Islamism, the weaponisation of human rights and conservatism itself, which has “forgotten what it needs to conserve”.

Several gory hills will take you by surprise. The Greeks. Dawkins. Freud. Eastern religion (“part of the West’s ongoing cultural tragedy”). Tattoos (“I ink therefore I am”).

Last but by no means least, the author kneels for seppuku on the most dangerous hill of all when she places Islam outside the spheres of progress and modernity, embracing the dagger with both hands.

These are not isolated debates. To Melanie, all are battles in a greater war, one that will only be won when faith is restored in the debauched and arid heart of society.

Is she shouting into the wind? Despite the widely publicised uptick in church attendance in recent years, this is little more than a blip in a wider trend of spiritual decline. At one point, Melanie calls for a “PR makeover” for religion. If the future of the West rests on the Alpha Course, I’m packing my bags for Israel.

Nonetheless, her call for society to learn lost resilience from the Jews is compelling and her plea for the West to rediscover its soul is both vital and poignant.

Khaled Abu Toameh: A Deal that Keeps Hamas in Power Is Meaningless

Those who think that the Iran-backed Palestinian terrorist group Hamas will abandon its Jihad (holy war) to murder more Jews and destroy Israel in the aftermath of the recent ceasefire-hostage agreement are mistaken. The deal does not require Hamas to disarm or cede control over Gaza. To Hamas, this is just another deal similar to ceasefire agreements reached with Israel after previous rounds of fighting over the past 20 years.

Hamas supporters in Khan Yunis took to the streets to celebrate the ceasefire-hostage deal and chanted: "We will go to Jerusalem, we will sacrifice millions of martyrs!" Hamas supporters in Ramallah, the de facto capital of the Palestinian Authority, chanted slogans in support of slain Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Deif, the masterminds of the Oct. 7 carnage.

A ceasefire-hostage deal that allows Hamas to remain in power means that it is only a matter of time before the terrorist groups attempt to launch another Oct. 7-style attack on Israel. Hamas's defiant statements show that its leadership is willing to sacrifice more of its people to fulfill its objective of destroying Israel. The only deal that will actually bring peace is one where Hamas ceases to exist.

What Hamas Looks Like after the Ceasefire Deal

For the IDF commanders involved in the protracted and complex fight against Hamas, it is clear that further action will be necessary.

Defense officials believe that Hamas or other rogue groups in Gaza likely will provide justification for resuming combat operations.

Military commanders anticipate years of ground operations in Gaza to scale Hamas back to its size of two decades ago.

Hamas still retains tens of kilometers of tunnels, particularly in central and southern Gaza, that could be used to restart limited weapons production, conceal thousands of weapons, and hide senior commanders.

Hamas has also recruited and armed hundreds of new members, including teenagers, to replenish its ranks.

Hamas retains two brigades in Nuseirat and al-Bureij in central Gaza, which have been largely untouched - possibly due to the presence of hostages in the area.

The Terrorists Live to Fight On

The ceasefire deal legitimates Hamas as a continuing force in Gaza. They will remain on the ground and Israel will not. Hamas now knows they will be part of future negotiations. Plenty of malign actors - many of them in Western governments, policy elites and media - will even start to hail them as peacemakers.

Moreover, the deal will prove that hostage-taking works. If Hamas had simply murdered those 1,200 plus people on Oct. 7, they would have won themselves no protection against Israeli retaliation. Because they took the hostages, they were able to make Israel hesitate.

The deal will also be seen in Islamist minds as a successful precedent. Capture Jews, will be the internal message, torture them, kill a proportion of them, play cat-and-mouse about the ones who live, and it will give you power. So, when you get the chance, do it again.

As the country founded to offer refuge to Jews everywhere, Israel has a Talmudically inspired duty to rescue them wherever it can. It is pierced, too, by the deep personal pain inflicted on so many families. Politically, it may be that there is an Israeli consensus round the idea that this deal is, as one Jewish friend expert in the region put it to me, "bad, but essential."

But I cannot let go of the point that, with this deal, Hamas have pried open the jaws of defeat and won, if not a victory, at least the chance to live and fight and murder for much more than another day.

Book review: "Young Zionist Voices"

Young Zionist Voices: A New Generation Speaks Out is a collection of 31 essays that make one hopeful for the future.

Similar to his previous book, Jewish Priorities: Sixty-Five Proposals for the Future of Our People, David Hazony found a diverse group of writers to each write about a specific topic, in this case Zionism.

While the writers have different colors, nationalities, politics and opinions, they all share a love of Israel and they are all unapologetically and proudly Zionist.

This is not a book that makes the case for Zionism. It is a book that shows the passion and challenges that young people today - all seemingly under 30 - have in living in a world where antisemitism and its twin anti-Zionism have become mainstream. Virtually all of them have chosen to respond to the recent tsunami of hate, especially after October 7, by leaning in to their love of Israel.

The essays are all smart and forceful. A few of the writers go beyond intelligence into wisdom.

They also make me feel old. I started my Israel advocacy when I was already more than a decade older than every one of these writers, and the ones who were born after I started this site were not yet in first grade. I am ashamed to say that I was not familiar with most of them and I need to expand the circle of people I follow on social media to include many of them.

To be sure, there are occasional passages that show that a few of the thinkers do not have the experience or historical knowledge to properly put today's events in context of the past two millennia of Jew hatred. That's okay - they will learn, and they are eager to learn.

The target audience seems to be people who are already committed Zionists, to make use feel better about the future. That's fine - we all need chizuk. However, I think that there is another audience that really needs to read this: the young Jewish adults just entering college or those who find themselves confused by seeing their friends turn against their spiritual homeland.

I recently wrote about "permission structures," the concept behind J-Street and JVP to allow Jews to become anti-Israel while pretending to remain committed to Judaism. If Jews see their fellow Jews turn against Israel it gives them "permission" to do the same.

Young Zionist Voices can and should be used to give a permission structure for young Jews to become proud Zionists. The modern "permission structure" gives a false pretense of "human rights" to smear their people, parents and ancestors. Young Zionist Voices gives a permission structure to be proud of who they are and to stand up for their own people. It shows that the most admirable Jews are the ones who fully and unapologetically support their own.

Young Zionist Voices represents the Jewish and Zionist leaders of tomorrow, and the future is a lot brighter than we thought.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

Reminder: @UNRWA teachers in Gaza celebrate terror - and Hitler

International organizations are rallying to pressure Israel not to shut down UNRWA in its territory. The World Food Programme, for example, last week wrote in a report, "WFP can send around 1,600 trucks of food (30,200 tons) each month to facilitate distributions for over 1 million people. In order to reach everyone in need, UNRWA’s support is critical. WFP is committed to bolstering UNRWA’s food assistance delivery efforts. "

I was just browsing around some UN documents and I came across a submission by an Israeli NGO Amuta called "Palestinian Exploitation of Children as Weapons of War."

One footnote references a post I wrote on this site in 2015, which is quite relevant today as the international community wants to shore up UNRWA as a legitimate organization.

I had found a Facebook group of Gaza UNRWA teachers. Among the things the teachers posted were photos of their students pretending to be jihadists:

Here is a "prescription" for shooting rockets to Israel.

Name of patient: Ben Gurion Age: 78 years old Male

1 M75 (Hamas rocket) twice a day, a rocket in the morning and a rocket in the evening at 6 o'clock, before eating, together with a warning siren

And here is a (false) Hitler quote:

"I could have killed all the Jews of the world but I left some of them (alive) so that the world knows why I am killing them" - Hitler

UNRWA never acknowledged this. They silently removed the group without apology. They never, as far as I know, disciplined the teachers and employees who proudly posted antisemitism and support for terror in their group.

There is no reason whatsoever to think that those teachers are not still teaching hate in Gaza.

This is only one reason why UNRWA should not exist.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

On Friday, the UN issued a press release:

Under-Secretary-General Miguel Ángel Moratinos, High Representative for the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC), will hold a hybrid press briefing to announce the launch of the United Nations Action Plan to Enhance Monitoring and Response to Antisemitism.

The United Nations has long worked on addressing antisemitism. The Action Plan, which is focused on the United Nations system, is developed by UNAOC. Building on the numerous efforts undertaken by the UN over past decades, this Action Plan aims to ensure an even more coordinated and effective response to counter antisemitism.

In particular, the Action provides detailed recommended actions for enhancing the United Nations Monitoring and Response to Antisemitism. These action points include:

Establish a United Nations Monitoring and Evaluation Working Group to monitor and evaluate the impact of policies and measures to address antisemitism
Enhance awareness and understanding of antisemitism among United Nations personnel
Promote implementation of the Action Plan on the UN’s monitoring and countering antisemitism

Yes, the world's most prominent organization that justifies antisemitism claims to be an authority in fighting antisemitism.

The document itself doesn't say anything directly objectionable. Indirectly, it does, by refusing to accept the IHRA definition of antisemitism even though it knows that is the only one accepted by any country.

The ability to understand and identify antisemitism is crucial to global efforts to combat hatred and prejudice, and to uphold human rights and human dignity. While a shared understanding can serve not only the work of the United Nations, but of all nations striving to create effective policies and programmes to combat this form of hate, the absence of a universally accepted definition cannot affect decisive action aimed to root out antisemitism.

As of December 2024, 45 United Nations Member States have adopted or endorsed the IHRA version as a non-legally binding working definition of antisemitism, and many use it for training law enforcement agencies and educators. While there is a diversity of views and other definitions have been developed , unlike the IHRA definition, none of them have been adopted by any United Nations Member State. Nonetheless, the United Nations Secretariat does not endorse any definition on antisemitism.

It is important to note that any definition of antisemitism should be applied taking into account the guidance provided in the Human Rights Committee general comment No. 34 on freedoms of opinion and expression (2011), in the Rabat Plan of Action (2012), and in the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination general recommendation No. 35 on combating racist hate speech (2013). In this regard, the Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion and belief noted in 2019 that criticism of the Government of Israel is not per se antisemitic, , unless it is accompanied by manifestations of hatred towards Jews in general or by expressions that build on traditional antisemitic stereotypes.

This is their way of saying that the IHRA definition calls normal criticism of the Government of Israel antisemitic - when it says the opposite. What the UN is really saying is that no criticism of Israel can be considered antisemitic unless it explicitly mentions Jews or says things like "Zionists control the world financial system."

Holocaust inversion, for example, is not antisemitic according to the UN.

Saying that Jewish nationalism is racist while other nationalisms are not is not antisemitic according to the UN.

The announcement is a study in hypocrisy.

After all, when UN representatives say antisemitic things, the UN doesn't say a word of protest.

Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories agreed with a social media post that compared Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler. She has compared the Gaza war started by Hamas with the Holocaust several times. In February 2024, Albanese stated that the victims of the October 7 Hamas attacks were killed "not because of their Judaism, but in response to Israeli oppression," a remark that was condemned by France and Germany as antisemitic.

Miloon Kothari, a member of the UN Human Rights Council’s Commission of Inquiry on the Situation in Israel and the West Bank and Gaza made comments in July 2022 referring to the "Jewish lobby," echoing age-old antisemitic tropes.

Richard A. Falk, when he was UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories, posted a cartoon in 2011 depicting a dog with a Jewish head-covering urinating on Lady Justice while devouring bloody human bones. Only when people complained did he apologize.

In all cases, the UN did nothing.

But that only scratches the surface, because the UN's double standards and obsession with Israel - so many anti-Israel resolutions both in the General Assembly and the Human Rights Council while all but ignoring human rights violations by the rest of the world - makes the UN one of the top causes and purveyors of antisemitism today.

And now we are going to believe the UN when they claim they are going to combat antisemitism?

Fire Albanese to begin with. Publicly accept the IHRA definition of antisemitism that says that double standards for Israel is not acceptable. Then maybe we can discuss whether the UN does anything concrete to combat antisemitism.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

Ari Fuld's murderer is getting released. A rapist is getting released. Major terror leaders are getting released. This is SO BAD.

I really want to find a silver lining in the hostage deal, but every day it seems worse.

Hillel Fuld tweeted that the person who stabbed his hero brother Ari Fuld to death is on the list of terrorists to be released.

This was not a terror attack from 20 years ago during the second intifada. Ari was murdered in 2018, and he managed to shoot his murderer and save other lives before succumbing.

Other people being released include leaders of terror organizations, not just low level operatives. Most of them have already been in prison for over two decades. But when I see a name like Mahmoud Atallah, I am enraged. Atallah was indicted in September for raping a female prison guard at Gilboa Prison but he has been accused of having female guards under a reign of sexual terror at the prison, a scandal that also involves guards turning a blind eye.

How could such a monster be released?

Studies have been done showing that the number of people killed by released prisoners is far higher than the number who have been saved in swaps. More Israelis will be killed by these murderers in coming years, without question. It is irresponsible to release them knowing that the lives saved today will be far outstripped tomorrow.

It is the highest duty of a nation to protect its citizens. That doesn't only mean today but also in the future.

I want to see the hostages released safely to their families as much as anyone, but this puts the entire nation of Israel at further risk.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)