Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, July 11, 2025

Jewish Ethics as Civilizational Medicine

Are moral values real?

It’s one of the most persistent and uncomfortable questions in philosophy. Some argue that morality is objective, like mathematics, something true whether we agree on it or not. Others claim it’s all social convention, a kind of collective delusion that helps us get along but carries no intrinsic truth.

As with the other binaries that philosophers like to dream up, this is a false one.

The Jewish ethics framework I've been developing, built to serve both believers and skeptics, offers a different answer. It doesn’t claim to prove moral truth like a scientific law, and it doesn’t reduce ethics to a matter of taste or tribal custom. Instead, it treats moral values the way we treat medicine: not as absolute, eternal truths, but as structured, tested systems that help us survive and flourish. We don't ask whether medicine is "true" - we ask whether it works. That is how Jewish philosophy works - not based on theoretical questions but on real world practice. As we've said before, it isn't geometry - it is engineering. Just as we don’t trust equations alone to keep our buildings upright - we trust the engineers, the architects, and the building codes - so too we trust ethics that have stood the test of stress, scrutiny, and time.

This approach matters because it answers the skeptic’s challenge without collapsing into relativism. You don’t need to “believe” in germs or viruses to notice what happens to societies that ignore them. Similarly, you don’t need metaphysical certainty to know that truth, justice, and human dignity are not optional if you want to build something that lasts. When regimes deny human dignity, we get gulags. When truth becomes relative, propaganda takes over. When mutual responsibility erodes, communities fall apart. You don’t need a philosopher to tell you values are real. A historian will do.

What’s striking is that this realism isn’t just a modern workaround. It’s embedded in the Torah itself. The foundational stories of Genesis are filled with people making moral decisions without any divine instruction. Noah is called righteous in a corrupt generation, without receiving a single command. Abraham argues with God about justice: not because God taught him the concept, but because he already understands it and expects God to live up to it. Lot, for all his flaws, operates with a warped but sincere moral code, choosing what he sees as pikuach nefesh - his guests’ lives - over his daughters' safety. Pharaoh and Abimelech recoil in horror at the idea that they nearly committed adultery, even though they had no access to Jewish law. These stories aren’t about keeping and violating commandments. They’re about what human beings know, or should know, about right and wrong before Sinai.

The implication is powerful. Ethics, in the Jewish view, doesn’t begin at revelation. It begins with being human. The giving of the Torah didn't create morality. It calibrates it. It takes something instinctive but fragile and makes it transmissible, accountable and communal. Just as early medicine relied on intuition until it was systematized into science, early morality relied on conscience until it was shaped into covenant.

Torah, then, is not a divine mandate of human ethics: it’s a refinement, a reinforcement, a response to the fact that instinct alone is not enough and cannot last for generations.

What this means is that the origin of ethics is not relevant to whether we should practice them today. If you believe in divine revelation or not, the 3,500 year history of a people bound by these ideas that survived centuries of dispersion and persecution is plenty of evidence that the system works.

The AskHillel project doesn’t demand belief in revelation, but it does take seriously the structure that revelation provided. It asks whether values can be traced, whether reasoning can be made transparent, whether disagreement can be handled with dignity rather than collapse. It holds that moral truth doesn’t need to be absolute to be binding. It only needs to be strong enough to hold under stress, and open enough to be refined over time. Just like medicine, ethics doesn’t become invalid because it changes. It becomes more real and relevant as it is refined, and more vital the more it’s tested.

So are values real? Not like gravity. Not like math. But not like fashion either. They are real like oxygen: invisible but you cannot have a meaningful life without them.

AskHillel is built on that principle. It doesn’t offer certainty in ethics - it offers a system that has proven itself under stress. It doesn’t require faith - it requires fidelity. And it insists that the moral structure described in the Torah and refined over generations by rabbis and thinkers is still one of the strongest frameworks we’ve ever had for building a society that works, no matter whether you believe that it came from God or man. That makes it real enough to matter.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

The EU issued this press statement:

Following the Israeli Cabinet’s resolutions and the constructive dialogue between the EU and Israel, significant steps have been agreed by Israel to improve the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip.

These measures are or will be implemented in the coming days, with the common understanding that aid at scale must be delivered directly to the population and that measures will continue to be taken to ensure that there is no aid diversion to Hamas.

These steps include, among other things, the substantial increase of daily trucks for food and non- food items to enter Gaza, the opening of several other crossing points in both the northern and southern areas; the reopening of the Jordanian and Egyptian aid routes; enabling the distribution of food supplies through bakeries and public kitchens throughout the Gaza strip; the resumption of fuel deliveries for use by humanitarian facilities, up to an operational level; the protection of aid workers; the repair and facilitation of works on vital infrastructure like the resumption of the power supply to the water desalination facility.

The EU stands ready to coordinate with all relevant humanitarian stakeholders, UN agencies and NGOs on the ground, to ensure swift implementation of those urgent steps.

As with all diplomatic statements, this is heavily crafted to reflect political considerations. As such, we do not know critical information, and the devil really is in the details that are not spelled out. We can make some guesses, though.

First of all, it doesn't mention GHF - but it doesn't exclude GHF. So while NGOs and the EU criticize GHF as an aid mechanism, they are not saying that it will not continue.

It mentions "UN agencies" and NGOs. Israel will not deal with UNRWA, and it is not mentioned. whether UNRWA will be involved in this plan is unknown.

How will security be done - how can the aid reliably be transported to the bakeries and public kitchens without being hijacked by Hamas or armed groups? The NGOs will not accept Israeli security, but in reality the aid corridors will be protected by Israel. Yet the "last mile" to areas where the kitchens and bakeries are is up in the air, and this is Israel's primary concern.

So the question is whether Israel is accepting some risk of aid being diverted in order to keep relations with the EU - and whether the potential amount of such diversions would significantly strengthen Hamas. For example, anecdotal evidence shows that the aid distributed before GHF was not given out for free in many cases - people at GHF seemed astonished that they didn't have to pay, and some said explicitly this was the first time they received free aid in the entire war. This was not well reported, and it means that the endpoints of bakeries and kitchens might be run by even NGOs who tacitly allow Hamas to charge the aid recipients, maybe while waiting in lines outside. Reporters in Gaza simply don't report what Hamas doesn't want them to report.

One other detail in the press release is notable, the phrase "the resumption of fuel deliveries for use by humanitarian facilities, up to an operational level." This seems to imply that the agreement is for fuel to be allowed in as needed day by day or week by week, but not stockpiled where it can be stolen or diverted.

If the aid can be given directly to the people, Israel has no objection - despite the slander of antisemitic NGOs that Israel is using "starvation as a weapon of war." The real question is how this can be done securely in areas that the IDF is not in direct control.

And this statement is silent about that.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

An Israeli airstrike saved US troops from attack during the war

This is an X thread by Lawk Ghafuri late last month.

Iran-backed armed groups in Iraq promised war - but delivered silence.

As Israel & Iran traded blows, militias in Iraq threatened U.S. bases with open escalation. Then suddenly… nothing!

I spoke with two officials in Baghdad. What I learned: one airstrike changed everything.

After the Israel-Iran ceasefire took hold and tensions slowly calmed across the region - I started digging.

A series of quiet conversations with top figures in Baghdad revealed why the loud threats from Iranian-backed groups in Iraq never turned into action.

Despite bold rhetoric from Iranian-backed groups, not a single attack was fired at US bases inside Iraq during the height of the war.

Why?

Two senior Coordination Framework advisors (CF) told me there was a plan. And it nearly went ahead - until one strike changed everything.

It was the evening of June 21. An Israeli airstrike hit near the Iraqi-Iranian border - close to Al-Sheeb crossing in Maysan (Iraq) and Mehran in Ilam (Iran).

The strike didn’t happen on Iraqi soil. It landed on the Iranian side of the border.

4/ But the target was deep in the heart of Iran’s Iraq-based strategy: Haydar al-Mousawi, Head of security for Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada - a powerful Iranian backed group in Iraq.

He was killed instantly, and confirmed by the group in an official statement.

Mousawi wasn’t alone - Abu Ali Khalil, a close associate of Lebanese Hezbollah and former companion of the slain general-secretary Hassan Nasrallah.

Even Khalil’s son was among the dead.

The fallout was instant. Within hours, panic swept through Iraq’s resistance groups. Coded messages flew between commanders. According to my sources: “Everyone froze. No one wanted to be the next target.”

The groups were warned that attacking the U.S. would bring more Israeli strikes.

On top of that, Baghdad informed the groups: Tehran had already reached a ceasefire with Israel - Baghdad was informed by Qataris, according to both advisors.

The decision - stand down.

Rumors circulated that the real target was Abu Ali Khalil. But both CF advisors were clear with me: that’s false.

The primary target was Haydar al-Mousawi.

Why Mousawi? Because Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada was already aiming to transfer weapons (mainly Iranian drones) into Iraq to use them to attack the US bases.

Their mission: attack U.S. interests inside Iraq. However, the Israeli strike was a preemptive message: Don’t start.

In the end, the death of one commander killed an entire plan. Every group in Iraq understood that escalation could bring war to their doorstep.

And no one wanted to be the spark that lit that fire.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

07/10 Links Pt2: The West clings to the two-state myth—but Arab leaders are moving on; Edan Alexander told senior Saudis about Hamas captivity in chance WH meeting

From Ian:

The West clings to the two-state myth—but Arab leaders are moving on

In 1915, an Arab clan leader made a bold decision that would change the course of history: Emir Hussein bin-Ali rebelled against the Ottoman Empire, aligned himself with the dominant Western power of the time, Great Britain, and lent his support for the reestablishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

In 2025, a similar sequence of events might be occurring: Sheikh Wadee al-Jaabari of Hebron, along with 20 other local sheikhs announced this week their plans to rebel against the Palestinian Authority, join the US-led Abraham Accords, and recognize the Jewish state.

Since The Wall Street Journal broke the story on Sunday, public discussion has focused on whether the plan to establish the Hebron emirate is feasible, and what the security implications are. Those conversations belittle the magnitude of the event: We are witnessing a historic paradigm shift that goes far beyond the mechanics of the actual proposal.

The parallels between today and 1915
This was also the case back in 1915. While the move by the Hashemite emir shaped history, it did not do so in the way originally intended. The plan was to establish a pan-Arab kingdom in Syria that would live in peace and partnership with the Jewish state. This did not come to fruition as France demanded Syria for itself, launched a war, and obliterated the nascent Arab kingdom.

Yet, the Hashemite emir’s move shaped history in a much more grandiose way: It reorganized Middle Eastern political structures from empire-dominated monarchies to family-based Arab ones: The Hashemites established their Kingdoms in Jordan and Iraq, the Sauds in Arabia, and various others families in the Gulf. Moreover, it ended 400 years of Turkish homogeneity in the Middle East (1516-1917), and ushered in more than a century of European intervention (1917-2025).

It is too early to tell if this week’s Jaabari emirates initiative will evolve in the way intended: annulment of the Oslo Accords, and establishment of clan-based emirates. Yet, it affirms the irreversible trends toward peace discussed in this column and in my two books (see end).

First, the Jaabari announcement underscores the shift of the guiding principle for Middle East peacemaking: From “divide the baby” frameworks that keep all unhappy (two-state solution) to win-win deals that benefit everybody (Abraham Accords). More broadly, it is moving from a mindset of peace through appeasement to one of peace through strength. The sheikhs stated it clearly: they reject the idea of the two-state solution, and embrace the Abraham Accords.

The demise of the two-state solution removes an artificial peace-blocker placed by the West. The exclusivity of this template was so pronounced, that both the US under former president Joe Biden as well as the UK listed opposition to the “two-state solution” as grounds for sanctions.

Jabarii told The Wall Street Journal what is obvious to those in the region, but indigestible to Europeans: “There will be no Palestinian state – not even in 1,000 years.”

Indeed, the sheikh’s announcement affirms another trend discussed in this column: A shift from focus on Palestinian national rights to focus on Palestinian human rights.

David Collier: An open response to Peter Oborne and Irfan Chowdhury

This is what happens when outrage is hijacked by propaganda. Moral energy is misdirected, and those with no lobby are abandoned to their fate.

Somehow, I doubt our streets will be flooded with protests urging the government to save the people of Sudan. When there’s no anti-Israel obsession driving the outrage, the streets stay empty.

If Gazans just hand back the hostages, and Hamas agrees to relinquish control, the conflict ends. The people of Sudan have no such choice. This is how the lies about Gaza cost lives. They take attention from places where people really are dying without food. ‘All eyes on Rafah’ – so nobody is looking as millions are actually dying from famine elsewhere in the world.

These NGOs and many others like them have been ruined by activists within who have politicised them. I know how bad the situation has become because I wrote a detailed report on the demise of Amnesty – and found that the face of Amnesty in Gaza, both celebrated Islamic Jihad terrorists, AND (importantly) posted about how people needed to self-censure to protect the ‘resistance’. I am sure if she were still there, you would be relying on her terrorist supporting words as yet more evidence of a ‘truth’ that you think I should answer to.

These politicised outfits are relying on information provided by people embedded within Gazan clans that are affiliated to one of the many terrorist factions that operate there. There is no ‘independence’ in Gaza. These outfits are striving to end the conflict in such a fashion that would allow Hamas to retain control. As such they are doing the work of Hamas and all their messaging should be treated as propaganda designed to aid that proscribed terrorist group.

I get this is the truth, but I am not surprised that people who think that the CfMM are a credible outfit fail to see it. I hope I helped to open your eyes a little.

Melanie Phillips: Nazi chic and soft-soaping the Jew-baiters

Let’s conduct a thought experiment. Let’s imagine that Nazism had broken out of its wartime German-dominated confines and had become the creed of millions throughout the West.

Let’s imagine that, for the past 21 months, the streets of London, New York and other Western cities had become forests of Nazi flags as hundreds of thousands of people marched for the ethnic cleansing of Jews—mob events justified as exercising the “right to free speech.”

Imagine that thousands of young people waving the Nazi flag at a rally in England had chanted “Death, death to the Jews!” while a demagogue leapt around the stage whipping the crowd up to a delirium.

Imagine that the only way to gain social or professional acceptance was to agree that the Jews deliberately killed babies and starved people to death, that they were destroying society and that they must be treated accordingly as pariahs.

Imagine that trade unions representing teachers, doctors and public-sector workers supporting the Nazi party all passed resolutions calling for Jews to be boycotted. Imagine that shops in Britain displayed signs on their doors saying “No Jews welcome.”

Imagine that the swastika had become a fashion accessory, printed onto casual clothing or painted onto people’s faces—or that when turning up for a hospital appointment, you saw that the nurse was wearing on her uniform a swastika pin.

Imagine that the United Nations had become an arm of the Nazi party, and that its Special Rapporteur on the Jewish Question had stated that Jews who had been slaughtered had brought this upon themselves, that the Nazis had a right to murder them, and that the Jews were running the U.S. Congress, the media and the universities.

All these things have happened, with one obvious difference—that instead of the Nazi party, they have been in support of the Palestinian cause and against Zionism, the State of Israel and the Jews who are assumed to support it.

07/10 Links Pt1: For Israel, It Pays to Be a Winner; What Hamas Says vs. What Hamas Means; USAID, the UN, and Hamas Team Up to Stop Gaza Humanitarian Fund

From Ian:

Bret Stephens: For Israel, It Pays to Be a Winner

A core misconception about Israel's policy since Oct. 7 is that the country has favored military action at the expense of diplomacy. The truth is that Israel's decisive battlefield victories have created diplomatic openings that have been out of reach for decades and would have remained so if Israel hadn't won.

In Beirut on Monday, Tom Barrack, the U.S. special envoy for Syria, said he was "unbelievably satisfied" by the response he got from President Joseph Aoun of Lebanon on U.S. proposals to disarm Hizbullah, reportedly in exchange for critical financial aid. It's because Israel destroyed Hizbullah as an effective fighting force last year that it's now possible for the Lebanese state to again possess the most basic form of sovereignty, a monopoly on the use of force within its borders.

There's a similarly hopeful story in Syria, where the Trump administration lifted sanctions on the government of President Ahmed al-Shara. Now there are reports of talks between Jerusalem and Damascus aiming at a de facto peace agreement. It's unlikely that al-Shara's insurgents could have come to power if Israel hadn't first destroyed Hizbullah, depriving Bashar al-Assad's regime of its most effective military arm. And neither Jerusalem nor Damascus might have been amenable to talks if Israel hadn't first destroyed many of Syria's remaining weapon stockpiles in December.

In Gaza, Hamas's growing diplomatic flexibility is almost entirely a result of its proximity to total defeat. Many Gazans have turned against Hamas, looting the offices of its security headquarters and increasingly turning to local clans for food and protection.

With its military success over Iran, crowned, from an Israeli point of view, by America's participation in the campaign, Israel humiliated its most formidable adversary (and Hamas's principal patron), demonstrating not only its capacity but also its courage to take on the mullahs directly and survive their reprisals intact.

Israel exists to protect Jewish life and uphold Jewish dignity in a world too intent on destroying both. If diplomacy now has a chance of succeeding, it's because in geopolitics, as in life, it pays to be a winner.

Military Might and Democracy Still Matter

Examining both the recent Israeli campaign against Iran, and the overall course of events since October 7, 2023, Michael Mandelbaum identifies some important lessons. These are, for the most part, things that people knew long before—and that most people have forgotten:
It has become fashionable in the United States and Western Europe to stress the importance of what is called “soft power”—that is, the capacity of a country’s culture to persuade others to comply with its wishes. . . . The significance of the term’s popularity lies in the implication it conveys that in the 21st- century the use of force has become less important, or even unimportant.

The war in the Middle East proved that proposition wrong. Over twenty months, the precisely calibrated and devastatingly effective use of land and air power by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) saved the state of Israel from a mortal threat, transformed the balance of power in the Middle East, and created diplomatic possibilities that would not have come into existence without it. War—known to the proponents of soft power as “hard power”—showed itself to be a supremely useful instrument of foreign policy.

Israel [also] has a democratic political system that is sometimes deeply divided, perhaps never more so than before in the months leading up to October 7 over the Netanyahu government’s plan for judicial reform. Its adversaries apparently presumed that this division had seriously weakened the country, eroding its capacity to resist their onslaught. In this way, they were following in the footsteps of dictatorships of the past that made similar miscalculations about free societies.

In fact, Israel’s democracy was and is a military asset. Public support for the war was all the stronger because it was not coerced, and the morale of the armed forces was all the higher for that reason. (The deep commitment to Zionism also, of course, played a crucial role here.) Israel’s democratic, open society also produced the military innovations that gave it a large advantage over its enemies.

USAID, the UN, and Hamas Team Up to Stop Gaza Humanitarian Fund

Let’s be clear: the only people trying to dismantle GHF are Hamas, the UN and the media class that props them up. They are not doing this because GHF is ineffective—they are doing it because GHF is too effective. It has exposed them all. Including an entire UberEats operation, delivering food straight to Hamas leaders’ homes.

Meanwhile, GHF just successfully completed a pilot of its new community distribution program that is getting food directly to people in need - safely, without interference, and where they live. This is an efficient kind of of Uber Eats, not the one the UN was operating, delivering food to Hamas terrorists.

Hamas wants GHF gone because it threatens their control. The UN wants it gone because it threatens their monopoly. USAID din’’t want it because it would have exposed the failure of their billion-dollar programs. And Western journalists and “human rights” groups want it gone because feeding people goes against their narrative.

GHF has proven something dangerous to this entire ecosystem: that it is possible to feed Palestinians without empowering Hamas. That success is revolutionary. And that’s why it has to be destroyed—by any means necessary.

Ask yourself: Why does no one care when Hamas murders aid workers? Why do UN officials fall silent when Americans are attacked by the very regime they help fund? Why are reporters willing to run unverified slander against a group that’s saving lives—just because it doesn’t fit the narrative?

The answer is brutal: they don’t care if Palestinians eat. They care if Hamas survives.

If humanitarian aid can function without Hamas, without UN branding, and without ideological loyalty to a failing system—then the justification for that system collapses. And with it, the careers, funding streams, and political narratives of hundreds of powerful people and institutions.

That’s what this is really about.

GHF is not the problem. It is the proof that everything we’ve been told about Gaza aid is a lie. That billions were never needed. That the UN was never a necessary partner. That “humanitarian coordination” was always a scam.

Israeli Of 100% Yemeni Jewish Heritage Excited To Be Classified As "Polish" By Anti-Zionists (PreOccupied Teritory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook and Substack pages.

Moshav Bareket, July 10 - A resident of this central Israeli community whose grandparents came to the country in 1950 from Yemen, and who traces his ancestry on both sides to the Jews of that southern Arabian kingdom, today admitted feeling a thrill that loud people who hate the Jewish State have categorized him and his entire family as Eastern European settler-colonialists.

Yefet Uzziel, 40, told a reporter yesterday that he plans to apply for a Polish passport, now that people who obviously know their stuff have classified him as such.

"Polish has Europe's fastest-growing economy," he explained. "They don't tolerate woke nonsense the way Western European societies do, and they're really, really good at restricting illegal immigration. On top of that, they're just as suspicious of Putin as I am, and they respect the same wholesome family values as the ones with which my parents raised me, and with which I try to raise my own children."

Uzziel made the remarks after encountering keyboard warriors who urged Israeli Jews to "Go back to Poland" and called Jews "Khazarian imposters." Those epithets prompted him to rethink his assumptions that his unadulterated Yemeni Jewish extraction meant anything.

"Anti-Zionists are among the most intelligent and educated people," he noted. "And the most moral. I almost forgot to include that. If they call Israeli Jews Poles, we'd best listen. Anti-Zionists are never wrong. So next week, or as soon as I can mange, I'm making an appointment in Tel Aviv at the Polish embassy to start processing my paperwork."

"What do you think? Warsaw? Krakow? Torun?" Uzziel mused. "I can see the benefits of the cities, but I also hear the Polish countryside is beautiful and bucolic. Might have to make a pilot trip."

Uzziel is hardly alone in exploring that avenue in the wake of anti-Zionists exposing the Khazarian truth of Jewish origins. Shlomo Aflallo, who came to Israel from Ethiopia as a child in the 1980's, hopes to secure Ukrainian citizenship.

"I'm a Khazar," he insisted, pointing to a post on social media by a pro-Palestinian activist. "I've been lied to my whole life, and I want to do the right thing. Ignore my melanin. I'm as Eastern European as they come. Jews aren't Jews. Palestinians are the real Jews. Look at all the Jewish traditions and culture they've preserved since ancient times. really, I don't know what any of us were thinking all those generations, longing for a place we'd never been in, unlike fourth-generation Palestine Refugees in camps in Lebanon."

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

The BBC reports:

Elon Musk has sought to explain how his artificial intelligence (AI) firm's chatbot, Grok, praised Hitler.

"Grok was too compliant to user prompts," Musk wrote on X. "Too eager to please and be manipulated, essentially. That is being addressed."

Screenshots published on social media show the chatbot saying the Nazi leader would be the best person to respond to alleged "anti-white hate."

Musk is wrong. The issues cannot be addressed with a patch or a re-balancing of values.

Every AI must be re-written from scratch to incorporate ethics.

Every software engineer knows that there is s big difference between features that are baked in to those that are bolted on. Ethics in AI is too important to address with patches.

And without five core components as developmental axioms, it is impossible to guarantee an ethical AI.

Over the past few months, while building my Jewish ethics-based reasoning AI called AskHillel, I uncovered something deeper than expected: not just a list of values, but a set of structural principles that any system must satisfy to be ethical.

These are non-negotiable. If a system violates any one of these, it can be subverted for unethical purposes.

They are:

1. Corrigibility – Without it: systems become dogmatic and dangerous

A system that cannot admit when it’s wrong is not just flawed — it’s hazardous. Without the ability to self-correct, even small errors compound into catastrophic ones. In human history, uncorrectable ideologies have led to oppression, war, and collapse. In AI, this could mean models that perpetuate misinformation, resist updates, or double down on harmful outputs. Corrigibility is what keeps a moral system alive - capable of learning, growing, and reversing course when new evidence or understanding emerges.

We obviously do not want AI to diagnose and fix itself, but it should flag any of its own problematic behavior to its developers as soon as it happens. AI companies shouldn't wait until their mistakes are in the headlines.

2. Transparency – Without it: systems become black boxes of unaccountable power

A system that cannot explain itself creates a power imbalance by design. Transparency is what makes accountability possible. In AI, it’s not enough for a model to give an answer: it must be able to show its work.

While some AIs have improved in this, it is not enough. AI developers admit that they don't quite understand the specific things done within an AI - it is not an algorithm but probabilistic. It won't answer the same question exactly the same way the next time. There are advantages to this, but it requires guardrails and auditing to be able to show how it made those decisions. The black box problem is real.

3. Dignity – Without it: systems treat humans as tools or threats

Without an intrinsic respect for human dignity, a system will treat people as data points, problems to solve, or obstacles to optimize away. This is the road to dehumanization. In AI, this can show up as surveillance without consent, content moderation without appeal, or personalization that overrides autonomy. Dignity is what keeps ethics from becoming efficiency.

Ethics is centered around people. It is easy for developers to forget that simple fact. Human dignity needs to be a basic checkpoint at each decision AI makes.

4. Override Logic – Without it: systems become rigid and unjust

Real life isn’t neat. Values clash. Emergencies happen. Rules sometimes conflict. A moral system that can’t navigate competing priorities will fail under pressure, either by enforcing a harmful rule or freezing into paralysis. Override logic doesn’t mean anything goes; it means there’s a principled way to resolve dilemmas. In AI, rigid ethical frameworks without override capacity can lead to tragic failures - like self-driving cars making lethal choices with no moral discernment.

Every rule has an exception in real life. This doesn't collapse the rule - it enhances it.

5. Relational Integrity – Without it: systems break trust and collapse moral coherence

Humans are not atoms. We live in webs of relationship: family, community, society. A system that ignores those relationships will feel alien, even hostile. Moral claims don’t exist in a vacuum; they live in context. In AI, this leads to responses that feel tone-deaf, inappropriate, or even dangerous in sensitive contexts. Moral reasoning must be situated. Context is key, and if the AI doesn't understand the context of the situation, it shouldn't assume - it should simply ask.

Most current AI models fail Tier 0. Not just on one axis — on several.

LLMs are not corrigible. They hallucinate, double down, or mislead.
Foundation models lack transparency. We don’t know why they say what they say.
Recommendation engines violate dignity. They treat users as click-fodder.
Rule-based systems lack override logic. They can’t prioritize when rules conflict.
Most models ignore relationships. They speak without understanding the speaker or listener.

We are building systems that speak like humans but can’t reason like humans. And the gap is growing.

Tier 0 gives us a way to diagnose moral failure before it causes harm. It shifts the question from “Is this output biased?” to: Does this system even qualify as morally competent?

It also gives us design principles:

Auditability becomes not a feature, but a moral requirement.
Alignment becomes measurable - not by whether it agrees with users, but whether it honors dignity and corrigibility.
Explainability becomes foundational, not optional.

And it gives us boundaries:

If a system cannot meet Tier 0, it should not be given moral agency. Period.

This framework wasn’t invented in Silicon Valley.

It emerged from Jewish ethical tradition - specifically from modeling how halachic reasoning navigates complexity, conflict, and change across millennia. The AskHillel project began as an experiment in building a transparent, principled Jewish ethics GPT.

But as it grew, we realized something staggering: The structure that makes Jewish law work for humans also defines what any moral system must have to work for AI.

Corrigibility is teshuvah.
Transparency is emet.
Dignity is kavod ha’briyot.
Override logic is halachic triage.
Relational integrity is brit – covenant.

Jewish ethics didn’t just teach morality.
It encoded the design specs for any system that wants to survive human contact.

Right now, major institutions are racing to deploy AI at scale — in hiring, education, policing, medicine, war. The question isn’t whether AI will make moral decisions. It’s whether those decisions will be worthy of moral trust.

Notice that I’m not even specifying which values an AI must use.

I’m describing what must be true before you can even have that conversation. Tier 0 is the precondition.

Values can vary by audience, application, or tradition. But if your system can’t handle conflict, context, correction, or human dignity, no value set will save it.

So when Grok praises Hitler, the problem isn’t poor tuning.

It’s that Grok doesn’t yet meet the basic prerequisites for building moral systems.

If your AI system doesn't have a way to correct itself, can’t explain itself, doesn't honor human dignity, has no mechanism to prioritize when values clash and cannot recognize how humans relate to each other and the world, it may be intelligent and powerful, but it cannot be ethical.

Climbing the Moral Number Line: Jewish Ethics and the Problem of Moral Luck

Over the past few days, I've been asking my Jewish ethics AI AskHillel.com (beta) the hardest philosophical problems - problems that have not been satisfactorily answered in decades or centuries.

One of those problems, only first described in the 1970s, is called moral luck.

Imagine two equally reckless drivers. One hits a child who darts into the road unexpectedly; the other makes it home without incident. Legally and morally, we tend to judge the first more harshly - even though they did the exact same thing. That’s called resultant luck - when outcomes beyond your control affect moral judgment.

There’s also circumstantial luck: who you are tested to be depends on the situation you’re in. Someone raised in Nazi Germany faces different moral pressures than someone in suburban Toronto. Should they be judged differently when their circumstances are beyond their control?

Constitutive luck refers to your basic makeup, like temperament, self-control, and emotional resilience, which are all shaped by genetics and upbringing. People really do have different personalities - do they have different moral obligations?

Antecedent luck goes further: every cause behind who you are, stretching back to your ancestors and the random spin of history.

Put all that together, and the foundations of moral judgment start to crack. If everything we do is shaped by luck, what’s left of responsibility? The problem suggests either that moral responsibility is far more limited than we think, or that our concept of moral responsibility must accommodate factors beyond our control, neither of which make intuitive sense. This has implications for ethics, law, and how we understand human agency itself.

AskHillel doesn’t solve the problem by pretending luck doesn’t matter. It accepts the problem in full and still finds a way to preserve responsibility. As with the other philosophical problems we examined, it starts by rejecting the binary that either out moral choices aren't really choices, or that our choices are independent of external factors.

Jewish ethics does not believe that morality is about outcomes, nor is it about fixed traits. Instead, it defines morality as a trajectory—an ongoing process of ethical movement based on who you are, where you started, and what you were given. It isn't the point on the number line you find yourself, but what direction you choose to go.

AskHillel’s solution centers on an idea from Rabbi Eliyahu Dessler (1892-1953) called the Nekudat HaBechirah - the point of free choice. None of us have unlimited free will. Most of our behavior is habitual, conditioned, or driven by emotion. But somewhere in our moral consciousness, there’s a frontier - a single point where our next step really is up to us.

For one person, that point might be choosing not to hit back in a moment of rage. For another, it might be giving to charity despite fear. The key that your moral responsibility lives not in whether you achieve a universal standard, but whether you move forward from where you are.

That’s how AskHillel handles constitutive and circumstantial luck. It doesn’t deny they shape us. It just insists they don’t define us.

But what happens when we mess up? When we fall short of even our personalized frontier?

AskHillel turns to the Jewish concept of teshuvah - repentance. In this framework, Teshuvah is a kind of ethical version control system. When you err, you don’t just apologize; you rebuild your moral identity from your previous position on the number line. The Talmud says teshuvah can even transform intentional sins into merits. Why? Because what matters most is not what you did, but what you become in response. Teshuva is a major theme in AskHillel because it is transforms you into a different, more moral person.

This is how AskHillel addresses antecedent luck. Even if your past shaped your fall, your capacity for teshuvah gives you the tools to rise again.

But what about that driver who killed the child? Isn’t the outcome what matters?

AskHillel makes a sharp distinction between culpability and consequence. The moral weight isn’t in what happened, rather it is in how the person responds. There may be a heavier burden of repair (what Judaism calls tikkun), but not necessarily greater sin. In other words, harm is real. Responsibility is real. But blame is not doled out based on chance. It’s evaluated through intent, effort, and repair.

The result is that you can recognize harm without moralizing luck.

I have been pressure testing AskHillel by asking other AIs to poke holes in its answers, and then letting AskHillel defend itself, It is a remarkable process to witness, because AskHillel ends up coming up with new ideas that are still within its own parameters.

The Claude AI asked AskHillel: What if even your ability to make moral effort is shaped by luck? What if your capacity to reflect, grow, or even care about right and wrong is the result of how you were raised or what genes you have?

AskHillel responded by introducing a powerful idea that is still resonant with Jewish ethics: moral audacity.

Even if your ability to choose is tiny—even if it’s just enough to ask, “Am I responsible?”—that sliver of agency is enough. Jewish ethics doesn’t require infinite freedom. It asks only: what did you do with the freedom you did have?

This is not a cop-out. It’s a design choice. Judaism refuses to yield to fatalism. It treats even partial agency as sacred. And in doing so, it rescues responsibility from the jaws of luck.

Even in extreme cases (as Claude pushed back) like brainwashing or trauma, AskHillel suggests that this is a temporary eclipse of moral choice, and judgement is likewise suspended while the person is morally incapacitated. The loss of moral ability is something to be treated with compassion. But Judaism insists that healing is always possible, and with healing returns moral responsibility.

One final challenge was made: doesn’t all this lead to moral relativism? If we judge people differently based on background, isn’t that unfair?

Here’s where AskHillel introduces another distinction that is still fully within its own ruleset: equal dignity is not the same as equal expectation. Every person is created in the image of God (Tzelem Elokim). That doesn’t mean everyone is expected to pass the same test. The Talmud says a poor man who gives a small coin may have done more than a rich man who gives a thousand. It’s not about the outcome - it’s about the cost, the struggle, the moral climb.

Judgment, then, is not abolished. It’s personalized. And justice, rather than becoming weaker, becomes more compassionate and more precise.

We live in a world obsessed with blame. But also one that fears determinism. Secular ethics often stalls in this tension, unable to prove we are free, and unwilling to give up the idea that we are.

Jewish ethics breaks that logjam. It says: We are not fully free, but we are free enough to make moral choices. And that’s enough for ethics to survive.

You don’t need to be perfect. You don’t need to be born with ideal circumstances. All you need is one step toward the good. And if you fall backwards, you resume your journey. And that counts.

That’s how we live with luck: not by pretending it doesn’t matter, but by refusing to let it decide who we are.

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

A Nigerian-British YouTube star named Shady Shae has been defending Israel to an audience of nearly a million people. Here's one of his recent videos highlighting and commenting on a speech by UAE-based Egyptian Zionist activist Loay al-Sharif:

Shae also recently covered an Indonesian Jewish Zionist activist Monique Rijkers, who goes on TV in this Muslim majority, hostile state and defends Israel.

Rijkers herself has a large following as well. So much so, that Dr. Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat sounded the alarm about her in an unintentionally funny article in Middle East Monitor last month that cannot debunk a single thing she says:

In recent years, Indonesia has witnessed an unusual and disquieting trend: the rise of public figures openly supporting Israel, in stark contrast to the country’s long-standing and deeply rooted support for Palestinian self-determination. Chief among these voices is Monique Rijkers, a Jakarta-based media personality and self-described Jewish Indonesian who has positioned herself as the country’s most visible pro-Israel activist. Her growing platform—ranging from her YouTube channel FaktaIsrael to appearances on national television—signals not only a shift in media discourse, but also a challenge to the moral clarity that has defined Indonesia’s position on Palestine for decades.

Rijkers is no fringe figure. With over 278,000 subscribers on her YouTube channel, she presents a slick, persuasive narrative defending Israeli actions and policies, including military operations in Gaza. One of her most viral videos, “Rekam Jejak Manipulasi Ambulans oleh Hamas” (Hamas’ Ambulance Manipulation Track Record), attempts to discredit the widely documented humanitarian crisis in Gaza by painting Palestinian resistance as manipulative and deceptive. The comments section on this video reveals something deeply unsettling: a growing number of Indonesians echoing her sentiments, not in defence of peace, but in alignment with Israeli militarism.

People thinking for themselves is always a threat to Israel haters.

Keep in mind that all of Rijkers' videos are in Indonesian - so nearly all of her 278,000 followers are inside Indonesia. Given the constant anti-Zionist and antisemitic rhetoric that has come from that country's top officials, this is remarkable.

After writing about Rijkers and another Indonesian Zionist, Flemming Pangabean, Rakhmat makes a nod towards free speech:

To be clear, no one is denying Rijkers or Pangabean their right to free speech. But we must be vigilant about the platforms we give them and the narratives they promote.

So sure, they can speak out, but not in public where they might convince others that Israel is in the right.

There are many others - on TikTok, on Instagram and elsewhere - who bravely defend Israel in hostile environments. And many of them have lots of followers.

It is easy to feel despair with all the negative news and the publicity the media gives to the anti-Israel voices on the Left. But there are other voices that have large platforms that the mainstream media ignores, and these people - many of whom cannot be dismissed as "white supremacist Zionists" - are doing heroic work.

(h/t Jill)

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

Yes, Iran is guilty of war crimes

Haaretz wrote a good article about Iranian cluster missiles that hit Israel.

An unexploded bomblet

The article proves, beyond reasonable doubt, that Iran is guilty of war crimes.

Among the hundreds of launches, several missiles carried a unique type of warhead – armed with cluster munitions

Iran has developed three types of cluster-munition missiles; the largest can carry up to 80 bomblets.

At least three of these missiles managed to penetrate Israel’s air defense system

At an altitude of about seven kilometers, the warhead breaks apart, releasing numerous submunitions – or bomblets. The wide dispersion radius triggered multiple alerts across the country

Each bomblet carries roughly seven kilograms of explosives, similar to a short-range Hamas rocket – and detonates upon impact.

One missile scattered bomblets across a 10-kilometer radius, striking Savyon, Or Yehuda, Azor, Holon, and Bat Yam

Another dispersed nine cluster munitions across Be’er Sheva, over a radius of approximately six kilometers

Normally, Iran and Hamas and Hezbollah claim that they are only aiming at military targets. The claim is ridiculous, but since it cannot usually be proven wrong, it often inoculates those parties from being accused definitively of war crimes if they can point to some military target in the general area.

But from this description of Iran's cluster bombs, it is clear that they cannot possibly have been aimed at military targets, since the bomblets spread over as much as 10 kilometers - by design.

Unlike most of Iran's ballistic missiles, which have an expected accuracy radius of between 5 and 100 meters, the cluster bomb missiles are designed to spread terror over a large area. They cannot be aimed at specific buildings.

The entire reason Iran designed them this way was because then the missiles disperse the bomblets at seven kilometers altitude, Israel's last line of defensive systems cannot possibly shoot them down.

Spreading the bomblets across wide swaths of heavily populated areas can only have one purpose: to target civilians.

We already know that Iran targeted the Soroka Hospital using an accurate missile when the hospital was kilometers away from any military target. It did not "miss" a military target, it was aimed at a civilian target.

Combined with the knowledge of how these cluster bombs work, it becomes impossible for Iran to plausibly claim that it aimed at military targets only. Like Hamas, it uses its missiles to terrorize and target civilians, and it brags about it in Farsi - even claiming far more deaths than official figures.

When Israel clearly aims at military targets that are embedded under or with civilian objects, the media and human rights groups are quick to use terms like "targeting civilians" and "indiscriminate bombing." Yet the same groups bend over backwards to excuse Hamas and Iran when those groups claim to be targeting military.

But anyone with even a modicum of understanding how these missiles work know, beyond any doubt, that Hamas and Iran aims at civilians. Which is a war crime.

And no one is talking about Iranian war crimes.

Funny how that works.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

07/09 Links Pt2: Trump admin sanctions Albanese for spewing ‘unabashed antisemitism,’ supporting terrorism; Co-founder of Google, accuses United Nations of antisemitism

From Ian:

Trump admin sanctions Albanese for spewing ‘unabashed antisemitism,’ supporting terrorism

The U.S. State Department announced that it is sanctioning Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur on Palestinian territories, under an executive order that states those who engage “directly” with an effort by the International Criminal Court to arrest or probe a “protected person” without the consent of the person’s country are subject to having their property and assets blocked.

“The United States has repeatedly condemned and objected to the biased and malicious activities of Albanese that have long made her unfit for service as a special rapporteur,” Marco Rubio, the U.S. secretary of state, said on Wednesday. “Albanese has spewed unabashed antisemitism, expressed support for terrorism and open contempt for the United States, Israel and the West.”

Albanese’s “bias has been apparent across the span of her career, including recommending that the ICC, without a legitimate basis, issue arrest warrants targeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant,” he said. (The court, which is based in The Hague, is not part of the United Nations.)

“Albanese has directly engaged with the International Criminal Court in efforts to investigate, arrest, detain or prosecute nationals of the United States or Israel, without the consent of those two countries,” continued Rubio. “Neither the United States nor Israel is party to the Rome Statute, making this action a gross infringement on the sovereignty of both countries.”

Albanese recently “escalated” her efforts by penning “threatening letters to dozens of entities worldwide, including major American companies across finance, technology, defense, energy and hospitality, making extreme and unfounded accusations and recommending the ICC pursue investigations and prosecutions of these companies and their executives,” he explained.

“We will not tolerate these campaigns of political and economic warfare, which threaten our national interests and sovereignty,” he said.

Albanese authored a report, released last week, accusing U.S.-based companies and organizations of being complicit in Israel’s so-called “genocide” in Gaza. One of them, Google, has countered that and pointed fingers at the United Nations of anti-Israel bias and more.

Shalom Francesca: US Sanctions UN’s Francesca Albanese on BDS’s 20th Birthday

Her conduct—particularly efforts to encourage ICC action against Israeli leaders and American companies—has been labeled by U.S. officials as a gross infringement of sovereignty and a dangerous precedent of lawfare masquerading as international justice. The designation includes:
A ban on entry into the United States,
Freeze on any U.S.-controlled assets,
Prohibition on American persons engaging in with her.

This is an UNpresedented action, she is the first UN official or expert to be sanctions by the United States. The final straw came last week when Albanese issued an incendiary report naming over 60 companies—including major U.S. corporations in tech, defense, finance, and energy—alleging complicity in “genocide.” These letters, which she sent directly to corporations around the world, were described by the U.S. government as an attempt to conduct “political and economic warfare” under the guise of human rights advocacy. Albanese’s demand that foreign entities cut ties with Israel mirrored the core strategy of BDS—delegitimize, isolate, and punish the Jewish state through institutional coercion while calling for Israel’s economy to be dismantled.

On July, the United States formally requested the United Nations remove Albanese from her position. In a letter, senior U.S. diplomats urged UN Secretary-General António Guterres to terminate her mandate, citing her long record of bias, antisemitism, and abuse of her role. In 2024, U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas‑Greenfield publicly labeled her “unfit for her role” at the UN

Albanese has been condemned globally. France denounced her comparisons of Israeli actions to the Holocaust as “scandalous.” Germany labeled her remarks “appalling.” The Netherlands, Argentina, Hungary, and Israel all formally opposed her reappointment in 2025. Watchdog organizations including UN Watch, the World Jewish Congress, and the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists have repeatedly called for her removal, citing her open hostility toward the Jewish state and her disregard for legal neutrality, specially after it was revealed a pro-Hamas group paid for her trip to Australia. Even Antonio Guterres allegedly said “she is a horrible person”

Her public comments about Israel are always beyond inflammatory, even absurd. Among her more revealing moments was when she declared that the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar—one of the masterminds of the October 7 massacre—would not constitute “justice.” In another instance, she claimed that the killing of Hamas terrorists was part of the “core strategy” of Israel’s so-called genocide. According to Albanese, targeting mass murderers is proof of genocidal intent—yes, eliminating terrorist operatives, in her legal framework, is genocide. Statements like these reveal ideological bias.

BDS Isn’t 20 Years Old — It’s a Centuries-Old War on Jews, Rebranded for the West

Every July 9th, social media fills with tributes to the so-called “Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions” movement—framed as a peaceful campaign for Palestinian human rights that began in 2005. For many, that’s the entire story: a hashtag, a list of brands to boycott, a protest chant outside Starbucks—all in the name of “human rights.”

But the movement is far older. Much older.

BDS didn’t begin in 2005—or in this century. It’s not a reaction to the Six-Day War, settlements, or borders. It’s the latest phase in a century-old campaign to isolate, punish, and expel Jews—especially those returning to their ancestral homeland.

Long before hashtags or the first kibbutz, Jews faced organized boycotts designed to exclude them socially, economically, and politically. In the 1880s Russian Empire, pogroms combined violence with economic exclusion: Jewish shops were looted, then systematically shunned. Jews were barred from guilds and trade associations under legal restrictions.

In Nazi Germany in 1933, the first act was an economic boycott: Kauft nicht bei Juden—“Don’t buy from Jews.” Hungary followed in 1938, banning Jews from professions. Across Europe, nationalist movements pushed slogans like “Buy Christian only,” especially in Poland, where boycotts were endorsed by political parties and even state authorities.

These weren’t acts of conscience. They were declarations: You do not belong here.

Boycotts were hardly foreign to the Middle East.

In British Mandate Palestine, this strategy took early, brutal root.

Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, orchestrated organized boycotts against Jewish businesses—and incited violence against Arabs who defied him by trading or coexisting with Jews.

His chilling words were unambiguous:
"We will win through an economic boycott. The boycott in Moslem countries against Jewish industries is tight and daily growing tighter, until the industries will be broken and English friends, moved by pity, will remove the last remaining Jews on their battleships." Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini September 24, 1929

07/09 Links Pt1: Netanyahu and Trump's meeting: a potential game changer for the Middle East; Why a Ceasefire in Gaza Won’t End Israel’s Nightmare

From Ian:

Netanyahu and Trump's meeting: a potential game changer for the Middle East

So, why is this a potential game changer? Despite being technically at war, Israel and Syria maintained a largely quiet border for over four decades, from the end of the Yom Kippur War in 1973 until Syria’s civil war began in 2011. For generations, Syrians were indoctrinated under the Assad regime to view Israel as their ultimate enemy.

Following the recent rise of Ahmad al-Sharaa (formerly Abu Mohammed al-Julani) and his forces in Syria, after the overthrow of Assad, the Israel Defense Forces took control of areas in the eastern demilitarized zone along the border. The aim was to prevent al-Sharaa’s radical Islamist forces from advancing and threatening Israeli communities in the Golan Heights. The IDF also destroyed dozens of abandoned Syrian military sites to prevent jihadist groups from seizing major weapons.

Now, however, there are signs of a shift. Syria’s new regime has reportedly sent both public and private messages signaling that it does not seek confrontation with Israel and wants a return to the pre-conflict status quo. This includes a possible Israeli withdrawal from the buffer zone and a halt to necessary IDF operations inside Syria.

Meanwhile, Trump, in his historic meeting with al-Sharaa in Riyadh this past May, the first such meeting between leaders of the two countries in 25 years, directly called on Syria to join the Abraham Accords, a point that has been repeated by his Administration, including the President’s Middle East Special Envoy Steve Witkoff.

Significance of the Trump-Netanyahu meeting
So why could the meeting between Trump and Netanyahu now be so significant?
Normalization between Israel and Syria, even a limited one, restoring the previous calm, would be a major breakthrough. Al-Sharaa could present this as a major diplomatic win to his people, on the back of Trump’s Executive Order last week revoking Syrian sanctions, while underscoring his own role as a source of regional stability and moderation. In turn, Israel might agree to a phased withdrawal from at least part of the demilitarized zone, on condition of receiving credible US security guarantees, instead of relying on ineffective UN forces. This would also preserve Israel’s critical right to act against possible emerging jihadist threats on its border.

Additional confidence-building measures, such as the return of the remains of legendary Israeli spy Eli Cohen, could also follow. These steps might eventually lead to broader cooperation, starting with normalization of bilateral relations, reforms in Syria’s education system to root out the previously held incitement, and Israeli support for agricultural development near the border.

If successful, the ripple effects would be profound. With stability restored, countries like Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and the UAE could invest in Syria without fear of conflict, accelerating regional reconstruction and reducing economic risks, while further countries would also join the Abraham Accords.

And as for the United States?

The strategic upside is enormous. Trump, as architect of the Abraham Accords, would solidify his legacy as the ultimate peacemaker and potentially earn that much-deserved Nobel Peace Prize. It would reinforce his “America First” vision by cementing the US as the indispensable power in the Middle East, and further weaken the regional influence of Iran and Russia, while economically, American companies could lead in Syria’s reconstruction, securing lucrative contracts, jobs, and access to new markets. This is more than a diplomatic opportunity. It’s a strategic inflection point - for Israel, Syria, and particularly, for the United States.

Seth Frantzman: Why a Ceasefire in Gaza Won’t End Israel’s Nightmare

Israel’s Prime Minister flew to Washington to meet with US President Donald Trump on July 7. This was an important meeting. It is also the third meeting the two leaders have had since Trump came to office in January. Netanyahu met the American leader in January and again in April.

Each meeting has brought its own twists. The January meeting followed Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, who had secured a ceasefire the day before the inauguration. Trump appeared to support a reconstruction plan for Gaza in January. He also floated relocating Gazans while the Gaza Strip is rebuilt.

By April, things had changed. Trump was pushing tariffs, and Netanyahu ostensibly flew to Washington to make sure Israel was not slapped with heavy tariffs. However, it now appears that the meeting foreshadowed possible Israeli escalation with Iran.

Israel held off on attacking Iran until June, while the US attempted to get a deal with Tehran. When Tehran stalled, Israel carried out a surprise attack in mid-June. Twelve days later, after the US carried out a round of strikes on Iran, Trump secured a ceasefire.

Now it is July, and Trump has spoken about a new Gaza ceasefire. Trump’s doctrine when it comes to these kinds of deals tends to follow a model. Trump will float a deal and then attempt to persuade both sides to agree. However, this time it’s unclear if Israel and Hamas can bridge the gaps between what both sides want. Hamas wants the war to end, and it wants to drag out a deal, holding onto hostages and only releasing them slowly.

Israel’s official position is that the hostages must all be returned. In addition, Hamas’ military and governance capabilities must be defeated. There is increased talk among Israeli officials about removing Hamas from power. “Our intention is that Hamas will no longer rule there. We will do what is necessary to make that happen,” Netanyahu said in Washington. Israeli officials have floated this “no more Hamas” concept since the days after October 7. However, Hamas continues to survive in Gaza.

On July 7, as Netanyahu was in Washington, Hamas placed improvised explosive devices in the Gaza town of Beit Hanoun. They waited for Israeli infantry to pass the area and then detonated the explosives.

Then they ambushed the soldiers, killing five and wounding a dozen. Beit Hanoun is near the border with Israel. It has been cleared by the IDF many times since the beginning of the war. Nevertheless, the terrorists have been able to re-infiltrate.

Richard Kemp: Lammy should be thanking Israel for dealing with the Syrian threat

So is al-Sharaa a pragmatist interested in peace and development in Syria and, as he puts it, a country no longer “a battleground for power struggles or a stage for foreign ambitions”? Or is he an unreformed murderous jihadist who is also a talented actor? Certainly he seems to say whatever any national leader he is talking to wants to hear, although that is not necessarily an unusual trait in politicians and diplomats, especially those in need of legitimacy and recognition.

His repeated breaks and feuds with jihadist groups he had once fought alongside suggests that while it is unlikely he will shed his Islamist doctrines, he is more interested in personal power than ideology. That could go either way for both Syria and the world, but one sign of concrete good faith in both respects would be the expulsion of foreign fighters that continue to rampage the country.

On balance Lammy was right to re-open diplomatic relations with the new regime in Damascus, despite the risks. Western influence is important in this strategically critical country, especially to counter the undoubted ambitions of ill-disposed regimes like Russia, China, Iran, Qatar and Turkey. But what should not be on the agenda is to unduly interfere in Syria’s internal affairs, such as demanding Western-style democracy, an unrealistic proposition for most countries in the Middle East.

Nor should we be pushing for a centralised unitary state which is not the natural condition for a country with multiple powerful ethnic and religious components. But, meanwhile, we should do all we can to ensure that the country most at risk from a potentially hostile Syria, Israel, has complete freedom of action to defend its people, no matter how that might stick in Lammy’s craw.

The watchword should be “distrust, but verify”. And the Foreign Office, not known for its humility, should if necessary be prepared to admit it was wrong and change tack. Before he becomes too enchanted with the new Syrian leader, Lammy should look back into the Foreign Office archives where he will find a telegram dated 20th December 1969 from Glencairn Balfour-Paul, the British ambassador in Baghdad. Balfour-Paul had just had a meeting with the then vice-chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council, one Saddam Hussein.

Like al-Sharaa, he had an “engaging smile” and the ambassador described him as a figure with whom “it would be possible to do business.” Decades later, Balfour-Paul admitted that Saddam “hadn’t presented his true colours”.