07/02 Links Pt2: The Military Danger of the Congressional Anti-Israel Obsession; Two mayors, one hatred; Ruth Wisse: How to Save the Jewish People

From Ian:

Ben Cohen: The UN’s crusade against Israel is fueling the pro-Hamas left

A smirk laid bare the United Nations’ unremitting hostility toward the state of Israel and its people.

Last week UN Special Rapporteur Reem Alsalem sat stone-faced and silent as she reluctantly listened to wrenching testimony from Ilana Gritzewsky, a young Israeli woman abducted and viciously raped by Hamas during its Oct. 7 atrocities.

“Even now, the feeling of being violated and powerless still lingers,” Gritzewsky said, her voice breaking.

The Jordanian diplomat — whose mandate is to prevent “violence against women and girls” — let out an exasperated sigh in response.

Moments later, Gritzewsky pleaded with her: “Will you look at me?”

And Alsalem finally did so, a smirk playing on her lips.

Her chilling cruelty can be interpreted in only two ways.

Either she believes Gritzewsky was lying, in keeping with the rapporteur’s claim last November that “no independent investigation found that rape took place on the 7th of October.”

Or she believes that Gritzewsky and the other Israeli women subjected to grotesque sexual violence and mutilation by those Hamas terrorists got what they deserved.

Whatever the answer, Alsalem’s callous demeanor encapsulated the loathing with which UN appointees regard Israel, and their embrace of the wildest assertions made by Palestinian propagandists.

Because the problem isn’t Alsalem’s alone: It is institutional and structural.

And its impact is not limited to the UN, as the current surge of far-left anti-Zionists in US domestic politics demonstrates.

In the last month, the UN’s human rights bureaucracy has stepped up its crusade to convict Israel of the crime of genocide.

On June 16 Vanessa Frazier, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, placed the Israel Defense Forces on a blacklist of armed forces that abuse children.

That list also includes the Russian Army and ISIS — but not Turkey, despite the horrors inflicted on the Kurds, including children, by its armed forces.

Tellingly, none of the other state armed forces on that list were ever compelled, as the IDF was after Oct. 7, to engage in a war sparked by a massacre of their own civilians.

But such nuances never trouble the UN when it comes to Israel.

Indeed, when Danny Danon, Israel’s UN ambassador, voiced his objection to Israel’s inclusion on the list, Frazier dispensed with diplomatic protocol and attempted to shout him down.

The Military Danger of the Congressional Anti-Israel Obsession

An effort by Rep. Ro Khanna (D., Calif.) to strip a provision on U.S.-Israel cooperation from the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act was ruled out of order on Monday.

The provision isn't about the West Bank. It would expand U.S.-Israel cooperation in missile and drone defense, anti-tunneling, cyber warfare and AI.

"We need to compete with China," says Bradley Bowman of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

"That requires learning from beleaguered democracies like Ukraine, Taiwan and also Israel, which is the best in the world in some areas of defense tech."

Israel excels at going from concept to fully funded combat capability - a U.S. weakness. Bowman rues the seven years the Pentagon took to adopt Israel's Trophy system to defend U.S. tanks.

The rising anti-Israel obsession is a gift to U.S. adversaries.

Two mayors, one hatred

Karl Lueger, mayor of Vienna from 1897 to 1910, used antisemitism to win popularity, making detestation of Jews a key plank of Austria’s Christian Social Party. Adolf Hitler lived in Lueger’s Vienna and would praise him in Mein Kampf, although, for the most part, the mayor did not back up his anti-Jewish rhetoric with policies.

Jew-haters and those who, like Lueger, used Jew-hatred for political purposes, coined the term “antisemitism” in 1870s Germany to make their bigotry sound modern and scientific rather than ancient and religious. Today, those obsessed with Jews and the State of Israel as ultimate sources of evil do the same with “Zionism.” It makes antisemitism sound “progressive.”

Zionism is the national liberation movement of the Jewish people. Pogroms in the 19th century and the Holocaust in the 20th century taught Jews the inherent vulnerability of living at the sufferance of others. Zionists understood that only a sovereign Jewish state could ensure Jewish equality.

Today, resurgent antisemitism uses anti-Zionism as a gateway drug. The abuse took root in 1975, when the U.N. General Assembly passed the infamous Soviet-inspired, Arab League-promoted “Zionism-is-racism” resolution. The resolution was Moscow’s revenge for Israel’s defeat of its Egyptian and Syrian clients in the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

Zohran Mamdani, New York City’s new mayor, belongs to the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). The party’s economic and social views mark it as neo-Marxist. Two of the three successful Democratic Party insurgents Mamdani endorsed in the city’s June 23 congressional primaries are also DSA members. The third is a former member. All three followed the mayor in accusing Israel of committing genocide in the Gaza Strip.

They do so because the “racist Israel” libel has not quite done the trick. Not when Israeli Arabs are the freest Arabs in the Middle East, and Israel rescued tens of thousands of endangered black Ethiopian Jews.

“Genocide” has replaced “racist” as the ultimate anti-Israel malediction. But the indictment is false. In Israel’s war in Gaza against Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other perpetrators of the Oct. 7, 2023 pogrom, the ratio of noncombatant-to-combatant deaths among Gazans has been lower than in Iraq and Afghanistan when U.S. and British troops battled Islamic fanatics.

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07/02 Links Pt1: 1,000 days after Oct. 7, the Jewish people stand proud; Military Victory Is Not Enough; Not All Terrorists Are Journalists (satire)

From Ian:

Military Victory Is Not Enough

Israel has demonstrated extraordinary military capability in confronting the Iranian-led axis. Together with the U.S., it has significantly degraded Iran's ballistic missile and nuclear infrastructure while weakening Tehran's network of terrorist proxies. Yet the decisive contest increasingly centers on influence, legitimacy, and public perception. It is a war fought through political warfare, psychological operations, legal campaigns, media narratives, and disinformation.

The Oct. 7 massacre demonstrated that terrorism today operates simultaneously on the informational battlefield. While Hamas carried out unprecedented acts of mass murder, the accompanying global narrative rapidly shifted from documenting the atrocities to portraying Israel as the primary aggressor. International institutions, human rights organizations, university campuses, and social media platforms became arenas where Israel's legitimacy itself was placed on trial.

The objective extends beyond criticism of Israeli policy. It seeks to isolate Israel diplomatically, weaken its alliance with the U.S., divide Israel from Jewish communities abroad, and erode Western public support for its security. Recent polling illustrates the challenge. Fewer than half of Americans identify Iran as an enemy of the U.S., while substantial portions of the public fail to recognize the ideological connection between radical political Islam and attacks such as Sept. 11. Such knowledge gaps create fertile ground for hostile disinformation campaigns and ideological manipulation.

The expectation that terrorist organizations could be fundamentally moderated through political processes proved misplaced. Rather than abandoning their long-term objectives, organizations such as Hamas continued pursuing Israel's destruction while simultaneously benefiting from enhanced international legitimacy.

The military campaign against Iran and its proxies has demonstrated Israel's operational superiority. Whether those achievements translate into lasting strategic gains will depend increasingly on success beyond the battlefield. The struggle over legitimacy has become Israel's eighth front.

Military victories cannot by themselves prevent the erosion of political support, diplomatic standing, or international credibility. Information warfare is one of the principal theaters in this conflict. Israel must become as effective at defending the truth as it has proven at defending its borders.

What "Defensible Borders" Means for Israel after the War

True security comes from anticipating threats before they emerge and sustaining the moral and material strength needed to deter aggression and protect the nation's survival. The phrase "defensible borders" has been used in Israel for many years to explain why Israel could not accept the 1967 lines as defensible, mainly with regard to Jordan and Syria.

Israel remains a small country with a population of 8 million Jews compared with 400 million people in the Arab League countries. At the UN, Israel faces 21 Arab states and 57 Muslim-majority states. The broad asymmetry facing Israel means it cannot remake the region into liberal democracies or significantly reduce hatred of Israel, no matter how many wars Israel wins. Therefore, after every war, however successful, Israel must begin preparing for the next one.

Israel's survival is not guaranteed by diplomatic agreements, but rather by objective strength and how that strength is perceived by enemies and rivals. National-security decisions must not rest on assuming deterrence exists. Whether it has been achieved is unknowable.

One of the main lessons of the war concerns Israel's ability to defend its borders in future defensive battles. It is crucial to prevent the formation of a large threat close to the borders even in periods of quiet. Israel must adopt an active worldview that regards preemptive operations aimed at preventing the construction of a significant threat as an essential tool of defense. The importance lies in preventing the adversary's ability to create a border threat in the first place.

An American Commander's Case for Israeli Strategic Depth after Oct. 7

Hamas's massacre in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, settled an old strategic argument. Israel, about the size of Maryland, is bordered almost entirely by adversaries intent on its destruction. Defending Israel requires strategic depth. The country lacked buffers in Gaza, southern Lebanon, and on the Syrian Golan front.

A familiar argument says precision rockets, cruise missiles, and one-way attack drones make terrain obsolete. But while rockets and drones are lethal, they are not war-winning. Hizbullah, Hamas, and the Iranian regime do not aim to harass Israel - they seek its elimination. That requires a ground invasion like Hamas executed. Buffer zones, demilitarized areas, and topographical control prevent such invasions.

The recent record of American military operations reinforces the same conclusion. The Taliban were defeated in five weeks in 2001; Saddam Hussein's regular forces collapsed in three in 2003. The American error in both theaters was the assumption that follow-on political reconstruction could remake those societies in a Western democratic image. It could not. The applicable lesson for Israel is: defeat the adversary's capability to threaten and to invade, do not attempt to remake his worldview, and return to dismantle the capability whenever it begins to reconstitute.

Oct. 7 showed what happens when geography is left undefended and threats are allowed to grow. Defensible borders are the minimum required for a small state's survival in a hostile neighborhood, and the precondition for any lasting peace.

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07/01 Links Pt2: Argentina’s Milei urges Latin American countries to join Isaac Accords; Boy George brands Roger Waters a ‘sanctimonious t***’

From Ian:

Argentina’s Milei urges Latin American countries to join Isaac Accords

Argentinian President Javier Milei on Monday urged Latin American countries to strengthen continental ties with Israel as envisioned in the Isaac Accords, saying it was an existential fight between good and evil.

The public exhortation comes amid a historic shift across Latin America, where a right-wing wave is reshaping alliances with the United States and Israel, and the political left is on the retreat.

“From my first day as president, I made the firm decision to place Argentina on the right side of history,” said Milei during an address to Latin American legislators affiliated with the Israel Allies Foundation. “What this region decides in the coming years will determine which side of history we end up on,” he continued.

The Isaac Accords, launched by Milei and Israeli leaders in Jerusalem earlier this year, are a diplomatic initiative aimed at improving relations between Israel and Latin American countries, modeled on the 2020 Abraham Accords brokered by the United States between Israel and four Arab nations.

He called the accords “a moral, diplomatic and cultural coalition” against antisemitism, terrorism and drug trafficking.

In a forceful and impassioned keynote address to the pro-Israel lawmakers from over a dozen countries, the Argentine leader argued that evil can only be defeated by organized good.

“Words without actions are just words, and the region already had too many speeches and too much inaction,” he said in a characteristically unsubtle rebuke of decades of anti-Israel policies on the continent by predominantly left-wing governments. “We have prayed, lit candles and held hands, and all the while terrorism continued.”

The unabashed philo-semite broke with decades of Argentinian foreign policy by both left-wing and right-wing Argentinian governments since entering office in December 2023 by forming an unprecedented alliance with both the United States and Israel, emerging as one of the most outspoken wartime supporters of the Jewish state.

The Argentine leader became the first non-Jewish head of state to receive the Genesis Prize last year in recognition of his staunch support for Israel. The Genesis Prize Foundation established American Friends of Isaac Accords to operationalize the vision of the Accords through public and private diplomacy.

‘Latin America can take a clear stand,” he said. “Neutrality is not an option just as it never has been in existential struggles.”

Abdul-Hussain: My journey from anti-Israel to pro-Israel is a model for the Arab world

At a launch event for his book, The Arab Case for Israel, on Tuesday, writer and researcher Hussain Abdul-Hussain argued that the path to peace in the Middle East begins with Arabs reexamining long-held assumptions about Israel, drawing on his own transformation from believing anti-Israel propaganda to an advocate for the Jewish state.

Speaking days after Israel and Lebanon signed a U.S.-brokered framework agreement, Abdul-Hussain said the Lebanese people can follow in his footsteps, as the country remains divided between a faction that promotes the Iranian narrative that Israel “only understands the language of war and force,” and those seeking to reclaim the country’s sovereignty.

“The Lebanese have had their share of sacrifices for big powers. This started back in the 1960s. The Lebanese will stand up for sovereignty and independence. They’ve been thrown under the bus time and time again and this makes them always wary and they try not to stick their neck out… this is what’s keeping them back,” Abdul-Hussain said.

The invitation-only event for the book, published in February, was hosted by Antoun Sehnaoui, businessman and philanthropist, and Morgan Ortagus, former deputy U.S. special envoy to the Middle East, at the Mark Hotel on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

Abdul-Hussain, a Shia Muslim raised in Iraq and Lebanon where he said he was taught to hate Israel and the West, is now a Washington-based research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. The Arab Case for Israel chronicles his unusual journey away from holding anti-Israel views, detailing his argument for why all Arabs should do the same.

“My story is the story of an average person who was told something and when he dug up the story it turned out to be something else,” Abdul-Hussain told some 50 attendees — a mix of Jews, Christians and Muslims — at the event. “I was taught, like every other kid was taught, that Israel must disappear. And I believed it.”

“Over the course of my life, events pushed me to try to learn about Israel.” The biggest turning point, he recalled, was in 2000 while he was working as a reporter in Lebanon. “We covered the Israeli military pulling out of the south and that day I drove my car to the border, which at the time was just a flimsy wire so I could see Israelis,” said Abdul-Hussain. “I became really curious. At the time, I could get on the FM radio of the Israeli channels. If you were in Lebanon at the time, your sources on Israel were [staunch Israel critics] Edward Said, [Noam] Chomsky and [Norman] Finkelstein.”

After learning Hebrew, Abdul-Hussain said he “discovered everything they taught us about Jews — that they were scheming to kill every Arab Lebanese kid — was not true.

Boy George brands Roger Waters a ‘sanctimonious t***’ after Pink Floyd founder’s anti-Israel remarks

Boy George has called Roger Waters a “sanctimonious t***” after the Pink Floyd co-founder predicted that the state of Israel will soon cease to exist.

In a pre-recorded video address to an ‘antizionist’ event in Ireland this week, Waters said: “I think the awful experiment that is the state of Israel is coming to an end,” prompting cheers from the audience.

He added: “And there will be equal rights, civil, human, every kind of right for all our brothers and sisters living between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea.”

A clip of the remarks was shared online.

In the replies, Culture Club singer Boy George responded to another video of Waters appearing on Piers Morgan Uncensored, writing: “Sanctimonious t***” Not you Piers!”

On Monday, Boy George responded to a July 2024 clip of Waters on Uncensored in which the singer-songwriter, who left the band in 1985, denied there was evidence that rapes had occurred during the October 7 attacks.

Boy George wrote: “Go to the Nova Exhibition you t***!”

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07/01 Links Pt1: Israel has outfoxed Iran (and Donald Trump); Terrorists who kill Jews are not ‘journalists’; NY woman arrested for funding PIJ, wished 'every day was Oct 7'

From Ian:

My cousin gave the world the word ‘genocide’ – don’t let anyone profit from it

My family’s name was never meant to become a marketing asset. Yet that is what it has become, and the only people who can stop it are reading this with the power to act and, so far, the patience to wait.

Raphael Lemkin was my cousin. He was a Polish Jewish lawyer who watched the Nazis murder dozens of our relatives and, instead of surrendering to despair, sat down and invented a word for the crime he could not otherwise name. He called it genocide. He spent the rest of his short life, often alone and often broke, persuading the world to turn that word into law.

The 1948 Genocide Convention exists because one man refused to let the slaughter of his people pass without a name. He died in 1959 with almost nothing to his own name except the one he had given to history.

That name now appears on the letterhead of an organization my family never authorized: the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention. We did not consent. We were not asked. And for years we have watched it raise money, build a public profile, and borrow the moral authority of a man it never knew, using a name that belongs to his family and to his victims.

I am a lawyer. I do not make accusations lightly, and I am not asking anyone to take my word for what the law requires. I am asking the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to enforce its own.

This week, together with the European Jewish Association, my family sent 100 letters to the officials who can act. We wrote to Governor Josh Shapiro. We wrote to Attorney-General Dave Sunday, whose Charitable Trusts and Organizations Section has plain authority to investigate a charity that solicits donations under a name it has no right to use.

We wrote to the leaders of the General Assembly, to Pennsylvania’s congressional delegation, to the Justice Department’s task force on antisemitism, and to the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt organizations. Every letter was verified. Every recipient was named. We did the work so that no one could claim the case was too complicated to understand.

It is not complicated. Pennsylvania law protects donors from charities that mislead them. It protects names from commercial exploitation. A complaint is already pending before the Department of State (Case 26-98-001879). A statement signed by 112 scholars is on file.

Jake Wallis Simons: Israel has outfoxed Iran (and Donald Trump)

Two weeks ago, it looked like Iran had placed the American-Israeli alliance in checkmate. With a flourish of a felt-tip pen, Donald Trump signed a “memorandum of understanding” that freed Tehran from American hostilities, promised it hundreds of billions of dollars, and allowed the nuclear can to be kicked down the road.

As if that was not enough, Israel was obliged to cease operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon, tying its own hands while the jihadist group rained rockets and drones upon its northern towns.

This remarkable Iranian military and diplomatic coup, aided greatly by the Islamist regimes in Doha and Ankara, drove a wedge between Washington and Jerusalem, making Trump look like a weakling and a fool.

The beauty of the deal – from the Iranian point of view – was that the more the president criticised his ally Benjamin Netanyahu, berating him as “f---ing crazy” and having “no f---ing judgment”, the weaker and more foolish he looked.

Well, Trump may still look weak and foolish, but the same cannot be said of Netanyahu. With an election approaching in September or October, he is not just fighting for the lives of his people but his political life, too; that is just the sort of thing that has always focused his mind. Israel has responded with a military and diplomatic coup of its own, in the form of a deal with Lebanon.

For the first time in 44 years, Jerusalem and Beirut have agreed to a framework that recognises each other’s sovereignty and commits to dismantling Hezbollah along Israel’s northern border.

Reportedly, the process begins with the establishment of two pilot zones in which the Lebanese army will relieve Israeli troops and take over the repression of the jihadists. Importantly, the IDF is permitted to remain in Lebanon for as long as it takes to neutralise the Hezbollah threat.

The proof of the falafel, of course, is in the hummus. As difficult as this pact was to confirm, its implementation will be immeasurably more so. Hezbollah has long been the most glittering jewel in Iran’s poisonous crown; Tehran will not allow it to go down without a dreadful fight.

NY woman arrested for funding PIJ, wished 'every day was October 7'

A 37-year-old New York woman named Catherine Beth Washburn was arrested and charged with attempting to provide funding to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), the US Justice Department stated on Tuesday.

According to the criminal complaint, Washburn is a leader of the Direct Action Movement for Palestinian Liberation (DAMPL), an extremist organization founded after the October 7 massacre. DAMPL has committed acts of sabotage and property destruction in support of Palestine and against entities that it associates with Israel, rejecting the idea of peaceful protest.

Washburn herself celebrated acts of terror against Israel and praised the bravery of PIJ terrorists. In messages recovered by the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) in February and March, Washburn and an individual who identified himself as a PIJ member and who claimed to have engaged in PIJ attacks against Israel discussed purported PIJ attacks on Israel, weapons, and ammunition.

An image shared by the DOJ also appears to show Washburn posing with grenades and a Hamas flag in the background.

Washburn also told the individual that she hated Jews “very much” and that she wished Israel “would disappear.”

“I wish every day were October 7th,” Washburn stated in one message.

“I feel excited every time I see news of the killing of an occupation soldier,” read another. Washburn sends money to terror organizations

According to the DOJ, Washburn made approximately 80 cryptocurrency transfers totaling about $30,116 to an account used by the alleged PIJ member.

“As alleged in the complaint, this defendant, fueled by her self-described hate of Israel and Jewish people, went to great lengths to attempt to provide financial support to terrorist organizations that use violence to further their agendas, including the Palestine Islamic Jihad,” said US Attorney Michael DiGiacomo for the Western District of New York.

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06/30 Links Pt2: Dems’ destructive agenda has turned them into a Jew-hating cult; A Former Muslim Exposes Tucker's Lie About Islam; ‘Anti-Zionist’ patrols in Greece condemned as echoing city’s June 1931 pogrom

From Ian:

David Collier: The PFLP Was There on Oct 7. The Archbishop Should Not Have Met Its Supporters

I will keep this as brief as possible. Following my article on the Archbishop of Canterbury meeting with two women with a history of PFLP affiliation, several people contacted me with a variation of the same response: “So what?”

It is hard to believe that, after October 7, there are still people with so little understanding of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), what it stands for, and the central role it plays within the Palestinian “resistance” camp.

Some naively imagine that October 7 was a Hamas operation with a supporting role played by Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Others assume that because the PFLP is a Marxist-Leninist organisation, it must somehow stand apart from the Islamist groups.

That fundamentally misunderstands the Palestinian armed factions and the reality of the alliances that developed first through violent opposition to the Oslo peace process and later under Palestinian rule after 2006. Whatever their ideological differences, when it comes to fighting Israel and killing Jews, the PFLP and Hamas are brothers in arms.

Nor has the PFLP ever been shy about its position. It openly announced its mobilisation on October 7 and participated in the atrocities that followed. This is the official statement (translated) published on the PFLP website at 10:25am on October 7, 2023.

Dems’ destructive agenda has turned them into a Jew-hating cult

The rise of the Socialist left in New York is a bad omen for obvious reasons.

The radical agenda is uniformly anti-police, pro-criminal, favors wildly expanded government powers over private property and demands punishing taxes on businesses and high-income families to fund its redistribution schemes.

If that were all, it would still be a destructive and dangerous movement.

But the post-election analysis from last week’s New York primary races finds another driving force among the winning candidates.

Namely, the hatred of all things Israel, and those who dare support the Jewish state.

It hardly needs to be said that the pied piper of this sickening eruption is Mayor Mamdani.

He started it and continues to fan the flames of antisemitism.

And now New Yorkers have made the added mistake of electing a cadre of clones.

As Jay Jacobs, the state leader of the beleaguered Democratic Party’s state leader, told The Post, the pro-Palesinian, anti-Israel furor “was a more important issue” in luring voters to races that otherwise had very low turnouts.

Overall, only abut 17% of registered Dems voted in the districts where the Socialist candidates beatprevailed over other Dems, some of them incumbents.

California Democrats divided over calling harassment of Scott Wiener antisemitic

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) told Jewish Insider in a statement that Wiener was targeted for being Jewish.

“It is sincerely disturbing to see Jewish lawmakers, including Senator Wiener, face deliberate and ugly attacks,” Schiff said. “Dissent and discourse should be expected during a campaign, but this is something totally different, and not within the bounds of what’s appropriate in a liberal democracy. When lawmakers are being targeted and harassed because they are Jewish, and viewpoints are being ascribed to them based on little more than their religious affiliation, that is a problem.”

Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) said in a statement that the actions against Wiener were “unacceptable” and “crossed a line.”

“We’ve seen a deeply troubling rise in antisemitism, violence and hate of all forms directed at people in public life, and we have a responsibility to push back strongly against it,” Padilla said.

San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan, Wiener’s competitor in the congressional race who is running to his left, said in a statement that she stands “firm against threats of violence and hate speech. There is no place for hate and violence in our city.”

Asked whether Chan believed the incident targeting Wiener to be hate speech, a spokesperson for Chan declined to say.

“In this moment, what matters is how State Senator Scott Wiener felt and feels about the interactions. We must stand in solidarity against hate whenever someone tells us they are experiencing hate,” said Julie Edwards, the spokesperson.

Pelosi, who endorsed Chan in the race, said in a statement that the harassment against Wiener “went too far, and I condemn all forms of threats and intimidation which have no place in American political debate.” Rep. Ro Khanna said in a post on X that what happened to Wiener “was simply wrong,” but used his condemnation to promote an amendment by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) to cut all U.S. aid to Israel.

Outgoing Gov. Gavin Newsom did not respond to requests for comment.

Respectability for Radicals By Abe Greenwald

Via Commentary Newsletter, sign up here.
But for my money, Ro Khanna, the U.S. representative from California's 17th district, is worse. My reasoning is related to a famous line of Martin Luther King Jr.’s. “The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people,” he said, “but the silence over that by the good people.” Don’t worry, I know the idea needs some tinkering in this case because Khanna is neither silent nor good. He facilitates the oppression and cruelty by translating the florid war cries of radicals into establishment shorthand. Here’s what he posted on X in response to the trans activists who ganged up on Scott Wiener on Friday for being a Jew:

There is no place for harrasment or physical violence in our democracy. I am a strong supporter of protest, dissent, & free expression. But not of intimidation. What happened to @Scott_Wiener was simply wrong. Let's focus on passing @RepThomasMassie amendment to zero aid to Israel. Hold elected officials accountable. But do so in the spirit of building a politics of conviction and dignity, not insult and aggression.

In other words, if you want to go after the Jews, don’t waste your time with a bunch of ranting freaks. Invest in me. I may not know how to spell harassment, but I know how to take down the Jews using the power of the federal government.

Khanna is no socialist—he’s worth hundreds of millions of dollars. And there was a time, not long ago, when he claimed to support Zionism. I don’t know whether he’s been asked about that lately, but he should be. Because once it became clear that anti-Semitism was gaining unprecedented traction in our politics, he decided to go all in—shamelessly. He now rushes to support Jew-haters left and right.

Khanna is worse than the outspoken and earnestly revolutionary Jew-haters because he—along with others—handed them the keys to the kingdom. Raging anti-Semites were always out there, mostly on the fringes. They’re actually not the ones who represent a new and frightening phenomenon. It’s humdrum opportunists like Ro Khanna who are now doing something both novel and ruinous. They’re hoping to trade away the country’s defining virtues for a shot at continued relevance. Khanna has discovered an uncharted depth of political prostitution, and his success threatens to drag us all down there with him.

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06/30 Links Pt1: One-year jail term for professor who killed pro-Israel demonstrator in LA; Iran’s ceasefire trap; Defensible Borders after October 7; The UNRWA crisis

From Ian:

One-year jail term for professor who killed pro-Israel demonstrator in Los Angeles

A Moorpark resident has received his punishment after entering a guilty plea regarding the death of a 69-year-old Jewish rally attendee who sustained fatal cranial trauma during a 2023 clash between opposing Middle East war demonstrations in Thousand Oaks.

Loay Abdel Fattah Alnaji, a 53-year-old educator at Moorpark College, was handed a one-year incarceration term at the Ventura County Jail alongside two years of felony probation for the 2023 death of retired pro-Israel activist Paul Kessler, KTLA-TV reported on Tuesday, citing an announcement from the Ventura County District Attorney's Office.

The sentencing follows Alnaji's legal decision in May of this year to plead guilty to charges of felony involuntary manslaughter and felony battery resulting in serious bodily harm.

According to state prosecutors, Alnaji transformed a heated verbal shouting match into an active physical assault against the victim on November 5, 2023, while opposing groups gathered at the intersection of Thousand Oaks Boulevard and Westlake Boulevard.

The district attorney's team established that Alnaji hit Kessler in the head utilizing a megaphone, a blow that forced the victim backward onto the asphalt where he struck his head on the hard pavement.

Eyewitness recordings captured from the immediate aftermath showed Kessler immobilized on the ground while multiple bystanders, including at least one individual from the pro-Palestinian Arab demonstration, rushed over to administer first aid.

Following the physical encounter, Alnaji remained at the intersection, placed a call to emergency services via 911, and provided a formal statement to arriving police detectives.

Kessler succumbed to the extensive internal injuries caused by the confrontation one day later. Law enforcement officers subsequently tracked down Alnaji several days after the incident, placing him under arrest for causing the fatality.

The Ventura County District Attorney’s Office formally noted that its prosecution team lobbied heavily for a state prison commitment, registering an official objection when the presiding judge chose instead to grant the more lenient combination of a county jail stay and probation.

“Mr. Kessler lost his life in a violent attack that took him from his family and his wife of 43 years," said District Attorney Erik Nasarenko, as quoted by KTLA. “Given the circumstances of this case and the death that resulted, we believe a state prison commitment was the appropriate and just sentence."

Groups condemn ‘slap on the wrist’ sentence for man who killed Jewish protester near Los Angeles

Jewish leaders and Jewish advocacy groups criticized the sentencing.

“We are deeply disappointed by the lenient sentence handed down to Paul Kessler’s killer,” Burt told JNS. The sentence “is little more than a slap on the wrist and not in proportion with the enormity of this crime.”

Burt said the court spent much of the sentencing hearing “expressing dismay” with letters submitted by members of the Jewish community and asking the district attorney’s office to “make a statement correcting the perceptions of the 132 community members who felt compelled to express how this woefully inadequate sentence would impact them.”

“Despite the court’s pointed statements about the Jewish community, the judge never once expressed dismay at the defendant who took Paul Kessler’s life,” Burt told JNS. “The judge merely asked the defendant to stay late to sign some paperwork.”

“Our system of justice needed to send a strong message here,” he said. “Instead, the message being sent is that you can get away with attacking someone in broad daylight because you disagree with their opinions, especially if it involves feelings about Israel.”

He added that the verdict comes as the Jewish community faces an “unprecedented surge in antisemitism,” including more than 800 antisemitic incidents in California in 2025 alone.

“This verdict does little to restore our faith in the justice system and its ability to protect us,” Burt said.

Alyza Lewin, president of U.S. affairs at the Combat Antisemitism Movement, told JNS that “as antisemitic protests turn increasingly violent, a dangerous trend closely monitored by CAM since Oct. 7, 2023, it’s essential for our legal system to deter, not embolden, unlawful conduct targeting Jews.”

“The disturbingly lenient sentence for Loay Abdel Fattah Alnaji does just the opposite,” she said. “Rather than serving as a warning to potential assailants, making clear that assaults which lead to death will be punished severely, this sentence emboldens would-be perpetrators of antisemitic aggression.”

“I fear it is only a matter of time before more Jews like Paul Kessler pay the price,” Lewin said.

Gerard Filitti, senior counsel at the Lawfare Project, told JNS that “to call this sentence an outrage doesn’t do it justice.”

“It exposes major flaws in the criminal justice system that need to be addressed—from the prosecutor declining to charge this as the hate crime it was and undercharging conduct that should have carried a mandatory term, to a judge whose slap-on-the-wrist sentencing is taken by many to devalue Jewish life,” he said. “It is hard to see this as justice for Paul Kessler’s family, let alone for a Jewish community under constant siege.”

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06/29 Links Pt2: Turkey’s Hypocrisy Exposed by Israeli Recognition of Armenian Genocide; Haaretz’s ideological mission: Dismantling the Jewish state; What Mamdani Assumes About Judaism

From Ian:

Mark Goldfeder and John Spencer: Without Evidence The U.N. Accuses Israel Of Genocide – Another Day That Ends In ‘Y’

Its working rule is even simpler: any target Hamas hides among civilians becomes untouchable, and any civilian who dies beside it becomes proof of murder. The deeper Hamas burrows into homes and schools and hospitals, the safer it gets and the guiltier Israel looks, which inverts the very law that forbids using civilians as shields. The West Bank makes the inversion even plainer: the Commission counts 213 dead minors, tells readers that 206 were boys, and from that ratio divines a “policy of targeting boys” as “future terrorists.” A war on children does not kill boys at 97%. That statistic instead raises the obvious question: many of those “boys” were actively participating in hostilities.

Of course, the Commission never asks the question. Under U.N. definitions, every person under 18 is counted as a child, whether a 10-year-old in a classroom or a 17-year-old carrying an assault rifle. Hamas, meanwhile, has long recruited, trained, and used minors, including teenagers and younger children, a practice the Commission acknowledges has been reported but expressly declines to investigate. By collapsing all persons under 18 into a single category while omitting the role of child soldiers, the report invites readers to equate every “child” casualty with a civilian who was not participating in hostilities. That omission is central to its narrative.

This is how a libel becomes a fact. The body counts originate with the Hamas-run health ministry and are relayed to the world under a U.N. logo. Human rights groups, several funded by the anti-Israel governments that demanded the inquiry, refer to it as settled. Reporters cite the groups without reading the report; policymakers cite the resulting “consensus”; and within 48 hours, the media print “deliberately targeted” as if it is an established fact. It is the same machine that once blamed Israel for the Al-Ahli hospital blast that American, British, and Canadian intelligence traced to a misfired Palestinian rocket. Anti-Israel bias does not need evidence, only an audience that has already convicted Israel.

The messenger does matter, and here it is the Human Rights Council’s only open-ended commission of inquiry, aimed permanently at a single country, on a council where roughly half of all country-specific condemnations name Israel. The world still calls it the Pillay Commission, after the previous chair who famously pronounced Israel guilty of war crimes before she was appointed to judge it. When Washington, D.C., sanctioned the council’s Palestinian rapporteur last year, the commissioners themselves resigned and promised to “reconstitute.” They did not, however, reform it, so the remedy is simple.

A bipartisan group in Congress already drafted the Commission of Inquiry Elimination Act, which would cut U.S. dollars from a permanent mandate that runs on $4 million a year and has dropped even the pretense of fairness or due process. The United States already refuses to fund discriminatory U.N. conduct, and this qualifies by any measure. The Commission titled its report “The essence of childhood has been destroyed,” but it chose the wrong noun. What this report destroys is the essence of evidence, the rule that an accusation of murder must be proven and not merely felt. After 94 pages, it still identifies no soldier, no order, no forensic proof, no battlefield investigation establishing intent, and no evidence capable of sustaining the accusation it makes.

The proper response is not to treat this report as a serious finding. You cannot defend against insanity. But we can and should stop funding it.

Turkey’s Hypocrisy Exposed by Israeli Recognition of Armenian Genocide

Israel’s recognition of the Armenian Genocide affirms an essential historical truth. Acknowledging one of the twentieth century’s first genocides reinforces the principle that mass atrocities must be remembered honestly, regardless of political convenience.

Turkey’s genocide accusations against Israel are undermined by its own century-long denial of the Armenian Genocide. While insisting the destruction of over 1.5 million Armenians was merely a wartime tragedy without genocidal intent, Ankara simultaneously labels Israel’s war against Hamas a genocide.

History demonstrates that genocide denial carries consequences. Hitler’s infamous question, “Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?” serves as a reminder that erasing past atrocities can embolden future perpetrators.

Yesterday, the Israeli cabinet voted unanimously to recognize the Armenian Genocide. Announcing the decision in Hebrew, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar declared: “It is never too late to do the right thing.”

Gadi Taub: Haaretz’s ideological mission: Dismantling the Jewish state

Less than three weeks before the Oct. 7 massacre, the Israeli daily Haaretz announced its break with the Zionist creed. Its editor-in-chief, Aluf Benn, penned a piece just before Yom Kippur eve, titled “Jewish and Democratic? It’s Time to Erase the Word Jewish.”

The paper’s regular Hebrew readers were probably not all that surprised. After all, many variations on this theme have appeared in the periodical’s opinion pages, and its aversion to nationalism and religion, as well as its infatuation with the local version of globalist ideology—the idea of a non-national, so-called “state of all its citizens”—were well known. But never before had the editor himself announced the paper’s desire to dismantle the Jewish state and put an end to the Zionist enterprise.

The editorial board must have thought that an international audience was not yet ready for the revelation, and so the English edition softened the title, cloaking Benn’s declaration in some warm Yiddishkeit. It read: “On Yom Kippur, Facing the Question: Where Is Israel Headed?”

Still, the confession in Hebrew was, in fact, long overdue. The paper has been working consistently and diligently to undermine Zionism’s moral legitimacy for many years, without admitting that this was what it was doing. It has disseminated some of the worst blood libels against settlers and Israel Defense Forces soldiers and given respectability to pundits who used its pages to argue that Israel is inherently evil.

This was never just an editorial insistence on high moral standards or constructive criticism designed to rectify wrongs. As media scholar Eli Avraham noted in his recently published book, From David to Goliath: Coverage of Israel in the International Media, Haaretz in general, and its English-language edition in particular, is not merely critical of this or that Israeli government or this or that Israeli policy. It is, rather, bent on demonizing the Jewish state as such and on legitimizing political parties, academics and organizations—both Israeli and foreign—which see Israel as “the epitome of world evil.” The paper also worked, Avraham pointed out, to erode Israeli solidarity by attacking every “positive and unifying myth.”

But it seems as though the paper also previously believed that declaring its anti-Zionist mission would be tactically unwise: that it would undermine its reputation for professional, balanced reporting and limit its ability to influence its largest target audience—liberals and especially liberal Zionists. It thus opted for an audacious strategy: It declared its supposed allegiance to Zionism. It also kept pretending to practice a form of “tough love” aimed at urging Israel to realize the so-called “two-state solution.”

For this purpose, it mostly took care to preserve for itself the possibility of plausible deniability: anti-Zionist writers, though ubiquitous in all sections of the paper—news, opinion, culture and leisure—were simply expressing their personal views. And when pushed, Haaretz could always portray its rejection of Zionism as no more than an objection to “the occupation,” to specific forms of discrimination or to the problem of church-and-state separation.

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06/29 Links Pt1: The UN’s toxic obsession with Israel lets the world’s worst regimes off scot-free; Danon: UN helps spread false claims about terrorists labeled as journalists

From Ian:

The UN’s toxic obsession with Israel lets the world’s worst regimes off scot-free

The Human Rights Council maintains a permanent agenda item devoted exclusively to Israel – a distinction enjoyed by no other country on earth, including North Korea, Iran and Russia. Even former Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon acknowledged the UN had produced a “disproportionate volume of resolutions, reports and conferences criticising Israel”.

I encountered this phenomenon during my own time at the United Nations. It was impossible for any Israeli to secure a senior appointment in the organisation, no matter how well qualified. Israel is the only country of its political and economic weight never to have held a position at Assistant Secretary-General level (roughly a two-star general equivalent) or above. I also encountered cases of UN staff and contractors self-censoring on issues related to Israel for fear of being accused of anti-Palestinian, anti-Muslim or anti-Arab bias, as damaging an accusation as one of racism.

But by far the worst example of this bias is embodied by UNRWA – the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, some of whose staff have been accused of being directly involved in the Oct 7 attack on Israel.

As recently as 2024, the UK maintained a longstanding position of condemning the UN’s hostility towards the world’s only Jewish state. Successive British governments rejected the Commission of Inquiry’s open-ended mandate and criticised its obsessive focus on Israel. But that consensus has been overturned by a Labour government more ideologically and politically sympathetic to this excessive level of scrutiny, or more in hock to special interest groups as obsessively hostile to Israel as the UN is.

The tragedy is that, while the UN has rightly attracted condemnation from informed critics, it has somehow retained an almost sacrosanct halo among much of the wider public. To many, the UN remains the ultimate authority in international affairs. That reverence allows weak evidence, activist assumptions and ideological predispositions to be laundered into accepted wisdom.

The UN’s disproportionate focus on Israel has long ceased to be a curiosity of UN procedure. It has become a pathology that distorts priorities, consumes diplomatic bandwidth and allows some of the world’s worst regimes to escape meaningful scrutiny by sheltering in the comforting consensus of anti-Israel indignation. It has also become a cottage industry, with networks inside the UN acting in concert with well-organised bad actors like Qatar and Turkey to sustain a relentless momentum of anti-Israeli attacks.

Many casual observers may believe the Commission when it claims to be defending vulnerable children. In reality, by substituting ideology for evidence and prejudice for impartiality, it undermines the credibility of international law itself. And, in the process, demonises Israel, Israelis, and Jews at large as bloodthirsty child killers.

The UN should pay attention. This is the kind of abuse that has drawn the ire of the US, which is withholding its UN dues and has sent the organisation spiralling towards budgetary collapse. Unless the UN gets its house in order and brings these rogue agencies and commissions to heel, António Guterres may not have much left to hand over to his successor at the end of this year.

Israel is America's 'only true Western ally,' Florida's GOP House hopeful tells 'Post'

US AFFAIRS: Florida Republican David Burck discusses Israel, Iran, campus antisemitism, and why he believes Washington must deepen its alliance with Jerusalem.

The US and Israel are the only two pillars of Western civilization still standing, according to Burck.

“Throughout the course of human history, we’ve objectively never had it so good,” he said. “We’re at an existential kind of point in the West as a whole as we go away from the ideas that have made us great, and we see it in Europe, and we’ve seen it here bubbling domestically in the United States,” he went on to say.

“I just feel like if I didn’t do my part to try to stem that tide in any way, shape or form, I’d be failing my son, the future generations out of the West, and America specifically,” Burck maintained.

“I think it’s high time for us to definitely codify our relationship even more with Israel; we need it. Europe is a rump of itself, it’s a husk, and it’s not going to get any better. And really, the only true Western ally that we have left is Israel,” he said.

While he had not yet had the privilege of visiting Israel, Burck said, he was looking forward to the situation calming down enough that he could cross it off his bucket list and visit along with his wife and 14-month-old son.

“I need to go look as a believer in Christ. I want to get out there, and I’ve heard so many great things,” he said.

“We need to keep this relationship thriving. I think that we’re going to work through this. I can understand why the people of Israel feel betrayed right now, but you know, Donald Trump’s done so many fantastic things for Israel, and I don’t think that he would do anything that would put Israel at a disadvantage,” the statesman said.

“Personally, I don’t believe so. I think this is just a part of the process of negotiating with the terrorist regime and the largest state sponsor of terrorism. I feel like Israel and the United States are just kind of like the two last vestiges of the best of the West.”

The CPJ Is Finally Acknowledging That It Called Gazan Terrorists ‘Journalists’

The CPJ announced on Thursday that it is undertaking a review of its own list of casualties of Gazan journalists.

The timing is not coincidental. In the past several weeks, Hamas and Islamic Jihad have been publishing obituaries identifying their dead fighters, many of whom have been living double lives. The most prominent of these double lives are terrorists posing as journalists.

However, none of this information is new. Since the CPJ started recording journalists killed in Gaza, HonestReporting has similarly been tracking the many cases in which these journalists were directly affiliated with terrorist organizations.

As of June 23, 2026, more than half of the journalists listed by the CPJ as being killed in Gaza were either members or affiliates of an anti-Israel terrorist group.

Most recently, Ahmad Washah, a Hamas sniper who also worked for Al Jazeera, was killed in a targeted air strike in Gaza. CPJ quickly came to his defense, expressing “alarm” at his death.

This has been a pattern at the CPJ, particularly with terrorists affiliated with Al Jazeera. The Qatar-backed outlet has consistently aligned itself with Hamas, frequently publishing the terrorist organizaiton’s talking points. Still, on four other occasions, the CPJ has expressed concern or condemned the deaths of Al Jazeera journalists, even when there is overwhelming evidence of their affiliation with Hamas.

The CPJ has exerted great effort to suggest that the IDF has been purposefully targeting journalists throughout the war. This effort has led the organization to include in its casualty list the names of any media workers killed in a war zone.

The CPJ’s own criteria state that it excludes journalists who were “directly participating as combatants in armed conflict at the time of their deaths.” Yet the organization has on countless occasions done exactly that, and thus redefined international law to paint an inflammatory and false accusation against Israel.

For the past two years, the CPJ has found that Israel has been responsible for the majority of the killed media workers.

In both 2024 and 2025, when the data was broken down, an entirely different story emerged, revealing that Israel was not targeting journalists, but rather terrorists who posed a threat to national security and hid under the guise of a press vest.

Israel has been releasing evidence of terrorists posing as journalists for the past two and a half years. Why did it take terrorist organizations publishing their own obituaries for the CPJ to recognize what has been public information all along?

CPJ expects the full review of journalists to be done in July. HonestReporting will be ready to remind them, once again, that shielding terrorists from scrutiny for more than two years is not an oversight – it is a moral failure.

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06/28 Links: CPJ announces full review of journalist death toll in Gaza after Hamas obituaries; Shapiro: Yes, We Should Abolish The United Nations; The Archbishop, Terrorists, and the Christians She Chose to Ignore

From Ian:

Michael Oren: America's Founders Fought a Middle East War Centuries Ago. We Could Learn a Lot from Them

George Washington believed it "the highest disgrace" that Americans paid monetary "tribute" to the Barbary pirates of North Africa who preyed on American merchant ships in the Mediterranean, enslaving their crews and endangering the nascent republic's economy. The practice sparked a visceral debate between John Adams, who favored giving in to extortion over using force, and Thomas Jefferson, who preferred to "raise ships and men to fight the pirates into reason [rather] than money to bribe them."

Today, the U.S. is grappling with many of the same questions. To what degree should Americans defend the freedom of navigation through a vital international waterway? Should they stand up to or pay off a Middle East power threatening it? The ayatollahs' worldview is almost identical to the pirates'. In a 1786 meeting with Jefferson and Adams in London, Tripoli's ambassador Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja insisted that Barbary was sovereign in the Mediterranean and that no nation could traverse it without paying a massive toll.

He further explained "that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their [the Muslims'] right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners." Any Muslim killed in battle "was sure to go to Paradise."

Jefferson concluded that peace with Barbary was only attainable "through the medium of war," but the newly independent America lacked a navy. After adopting the Constitution in 1789, which enabled a single federal government to raise taxes to build a navy, the U.S. authorized the construction of six frigates especially designed to fight close to Barbary's shallow shores. What ensued was America's first foreign war, lasting until 1815. Only then was Barbary decisively defeated, and American merchantmen guaranteed safe passage through the Mediterranean.

The victory was a source of immense national pride. The country erected its first war monument, to the triumphant Barbary War, on the campus of the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis. 17 American cities were named for the hero of that campaign, Commodore Stephen Decatur. And the Marines still sing of their landing "on the shores of Tripoli."

These testaments serve to remind Americans of the ways in which the Founders faced the threats to free navigation posed by an extremist Middle Eastern regime.

Netanyahu: ‘No room’ for Palestinian state between Mediterranean Sea and Jordan River

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday that there is “no room for two states” between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, arguing the war created broad public consensus against creating a Palestinian state.

“Before the war, the public was divided: although in my opinion most of the public was against it, a significant portion was in favor. I think that has changed,” Netanyahu told reporters, answering a question at a press conference in Jerusalem on Saturday night.

“That is a basis for agreement,” added the premier. “In my opinion, there is much more unity among the public than you see in the Knesset.”

Netanyahu was responding to a question from Israel Hayom about the principles on which he would seek to form his next government if he wins another term in the general election this fall.

Before the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre that sparked the current multi-front war, 69% of Israelis opposed the establishment of another Palestinian state beyond the one in Gaza. This opposition surged to 79% in the aftermath of the attacks, according to polling data published by the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs in May.

Israeli government votes to recognize Armenian Genocide

The Israeli Cabinet on Sunday voted to recognize the genocide carried out against the Armenians, Assyrians and Greeks by Ottoman Turkey in the early 20th century.

“The government of Israel unanimously approved Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar’s proposal to recognize the Armenian Genocide,” Sa’ar’s office announced following the weekly Cabinet meeting in Jerusalem.

“It is never too late to do the right thing,” he said in the statement.

Sa’ar announced on Thursday night that he would submit the resolution to the Cabinet, tweeting: “Recognizing the genocide perpetrated against the Armenian people in the final years of the Ottoman Empire is both a moral and historical duty.

“We must also firmly condemn any denial, minimization or distortion of the historical truth,” he added. “The resolution will subsequently be brought before the Knesset for a vote.”

To date, 34 countries, including the United States and Greece, have recognized the Armenian Genocide. Israel would be the 35th.

In August 2025, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the first time publicly recognized the Armenian Genocide.

Asked by American podcaster Patrick Bet-David why Jerusalem has yet to recognize the genocide, Netanyahu said, “In fact, I think we have. I think the Knesset passed a resolution to that effect.”

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06/27 Links: There is no distinction between Jews and Zionists - ask Jews from Arab countries; Bibi: From the sea to the Jordan, there is no room for two states; Israel-Lebanon deal framework: trust but verify

From Ian:

Lyn Julius: There is no distinction between Jews and Zionists - ask Jews from Arab countries

It has been six months since 15 people were gunned down on Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, prompting the establishment by a shocked government of a Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion.

The Commission has received over 16,000 submissions, and a block of hearings is slated to begin at the end of June.

My organization Harif – the UK Association of Jews from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) – was asked to make a submission on behalf of the 10 to 20% of Australian Jews who are Sephardi or Mizrahi (easterners), i.e., hailing from the Middle East and North Africa.

They may be a minority within the Jewish minority, but their experience of living in Arab and Muslim countries and fleeing from these lands can bring an essential perspective to understanding the causes of antisemitism sweeping through the West today.

The Commission might be able to learn useful insights from them, the first being that almost a million Jews were ethnically cleansed from the MENA, even though they had no part to play in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Almost no Jews live in the Arab world today because Arab governments conflated Jews with Zionists. Jews were victimized as potential spies for Israel.

Whatever their political leanings and however spurious the pretext, Jews could be arrested, tried, and even executed for the crime of Zionism.

The second insight is that one cannot perceive a distinction between Jews and Zionists in Western antisemitism. Today, supporters of the Palestinian cause say they are against Zionism, not Jews.

When 'Zionism' becomes the cover
They point to the small number of Jews who join their protests.

However, it doesn’t take much to see that “legitimate criticism of the Israeli government” takes the form of verbal and physical abuse of Jews, firebombings, arson, and shootings at Jewish schools and synagogues, and ultimately, the murder of Jews simply for being Jews.

Left-wing Jews attempt to deflect by claiming that antisemitism is a problem for the Right. They claim that curbs on incitement proposed by the Commission are in reality limitations on free speech.

But the two gunmen who slaughtered Jews celebrating Hanukkah on Bondi Beach never asked what their victims’ views on Israel were.

Mizrahi Jews who are now resettled in the West are experiencing a sense of déjà vu, reliving the trauma they experienced in their birth countries. The bullying and harassment they thought they had escaped are back with a vengeance.

The slogans chanted in every anti-Jewish riot in Arab countries never did distinguish between Jews and Zionists.

Between Jakarta and Jerusalem

Conclusion: The dawn of functional normalisation
Ultimately, Indonesia’s calculated steps toward the Gaza post-war architecture reveal a sophisticated paradox. President Prabowo’s conciliatory rhetoric and his willingness to engage with the Board of Peace demonstrate a level of pragmatic goodwill that would have been unthinkable under previous administrations. The strategic benefits of the move – currying favour with Washington, positioning Indonesia as a responsible global middle power and securing a seat at the table in Middle Eastern affairs – are simply too lucrative for Jakarta to ignore.

However, Western observers must avoid the illusion of an imminent, warm normalisation. The path to formal diplomatic ties remains firmly blocked by the domestic Palestinian veto and is entirely contingent upon a prior breakthrough between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

What we are witnessing instead is the birth of “Functional Normalisation”. The massive logistical realities of a potential Indonesian deployment, combined with daily operational coordination within the Board of Peace, will force Israeli and Indonesian defence, intelligence and diplomatic officials into unprecedented direct contact.

A stark preview of this reality occurred recently with the interception of the Global Sumud Flotilla, where the detention of Indonesian activists forced Foreign Minister Sugiono to utilise the Board of Peace as a direct de-escalation channel with Jerusalem. This crisis proved that while institutional ambiguity can be “quicksand”, the operational imperatives of crisis management create an unavoidable, functional dialogue.

For Israel, securing the active involvement of the world’s largest Muslim nation in securing its post-war periphery is an extraordinary geopolitical achievement. For Indonesia, it is a high-risk domestic tightrope walk. Therefore, functional, quiet and deeply cautious coordination is the maximum the current geopolitical architecture can bear, and even that is only feasible if the ISF mandate remains strictly defined and a Saudi catalyst remains on the horizon.

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06/26 Links Pt2: We owe the Jews of the 1930s an apology; The Hamasniks are coming to power; The Jew who financed American independence

From Ian:

We owe the Jews of the 1930s an apology

For most of my life, I looked back at the Jews of the 1930s with a question I could never quite answer: Why didn’t they see it?

Why didn’t they recognize what was unfolding around them? Why did so many continue believing that reason would ultimately prevail, that institutions would protect them, that the political rhetoric wasn’t meant literally or that the hatred would eventually burn itself out?

Those questions become harder to ask with confidence when we look honestly at the world today.

Perhaps we owe the Jews of the 1930s an apology.

Perhaps they saw far more than we ever gave them credit for. Perhaps they understood exactly what was happening but found themselves trapped by institutions they trusted, political coalitions they had spent generations building and a natural human reluctance to believe that civilized societies could unravel as quickly as they eventually did.

That possibility should make every Jew stop and think.

History rarely repeats itself exactly, but it often rhymes with unsettling precision. The slogans change. The technology changes. The politics change. But human nature changes very little. Every generation convinces itself that it is more enlightened than the one before it; yet every generation eventually discovers that prejudice has an extraordinary ability to reinvent itself while insisting it is something entirely different.

Today’s antisemitism rarely introduces itself honestly. It often disguises itself as activism, social justice, anti-colonialism, academic theory or political purity. It changes vocabulary without changing intent. Hatred has always been remarkably adaptable. It learns the language of the moment because it makes it easier to recruit people who would never knowingly associate themselves with antisemitism.

That is what makes this moment so dangerous.

There are candidates seeking public office who have been trafficking in antisemitic rhetoric or repeatedly associating themselves with those who do. There are elected officials who cannot bring themselves to condemn antisemitism with the same clarity they demand on virtually every other form of hatred. There are universities where Jewish students increasingly question whether they can openly express their identity without becoming targets. There are institutions that seem more comfortable explaining antisemitism than confronting it.

None of this should feel normal.

In new book, former AJC chief David Harris traces antisemitism’s past — and warns about its present

David Harris spent more than three decades leading the American Jewish Committee, where he navigated crises facing the Jewish community and built bipartisan coalitions to advance the group’s mission of supporting Israel and Diaspora Jewry.

His book, Antisemitism: What Everyone Needs to Know, published by Oxford University Press last year, is Harris’ attempt to reach beyond the Jewish community — churches, classrooms and the “average New York Times reader.” His goal, he said, is to turn the “silent majority” into the “loud majority.”

Written in the shadow of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks in Israel, the book arrived at a moment of surging antisemitism in the U.S. and around the world. It traces antisemitism from its ancient roots through the Holocaust, the Soviet era and its recent resurgence — the explosion on college campuses and beyond after Oct. 7 and the ensuing war in Gaza.

Harris, who quipped that he retired “for about 30 seconds” after serving as AJC’s CEO from 1990–2022, sat down with Jewish Insider on Thursday to discuss the book at a moment in which he said he has “never been more worried” about antisemitism — yet also remains optimistic about the Jewish future.

Thank you, Mayor Zohran Mamdani: Your hate might just be a blessing in disguise

Mamdani, the newly elected Mayor of New York City, has chosen to lead the charge as an overt anti-Zionist, deploying rhetoric that positions himself squarely against the Jewish state and the mainstream Jewish community. From his policy decisions to his endorsement of congressional candidates aimed at reshaping the American legislature, his positions are stark.

Mamdani is performing a vital service: he is alerting us before it is too late. By abandoning the polite euphemisms that long characterized progressive anti-Israel rhetoric, he is letting us know exactly where we stand. When he openly mocks the traditional Israel Day Parade in NYC while happily attending other cultural parades, he is showing us that the water is bubbling.

Consider his recent public declaration regarding the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Mamdani openly branded the mainstream pro-Israel lobby as “monsters” who move millions in “dark money.” Speaking from City Hall, he argued that they weaponize capital to “preserve their power so that they can turn us against one another.” He declared: “In the wealthiest city, in the wealthiest country in the history of the world, we need not live in fear of monsters any longer.”

The mayor governing the city with the largest Jewish population in the world outside of Israel is not just looking to have a local impact, but a national and global one. Utilizing the laundering of classic, ancient conspiratorial accusations from the highest municipal podium in America. When an elected official swaps out traditional diplomatic expressions for terms like “monsters” and a hidden hand, “turning us against one another,” he normalizes a dangerous propaganda pattern characterized by three distinct realities:
• The Creation of Moral Binaries: reducing a multi-layered, existential regional conflict into a simplistic fairy tale of pure oppressors and pure oppressed.
• Emotionally Charged Outrage: mobilizing a political base by framing ideological opponents not as mistaken, but as morally illegitimate and subhuman, literal “monsters.”
• The Deployment of Scapegoating: suggesting that a powerful, Jewish-associated organization is the clandestine architect of broader domestic societal suffering.

Mamdani operates within a democratic framework subject to courts and elections; the danger lies in his techniques. History teaches us that when you systematically dehumanize a group and simplify complex realities, you create a social atmosphere where raw prejudice becomes acceptable, normalized, and eventually weaponized.

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06/26 Links Pt1: US-Israel-Lebanon sign trilateral framework agreement aimed at dismantling Hezbollah; The UN’s ‘War Crimes’ Recycling Op; US strikes Iranian military sites after drone attack on commercial vessel

From Ian:

US-Israel-Lebanon sign trilateral framework agreement aimed at dismantling Hezbollah

The United States, Israel, and Lebanon signed a trilateral framework agreement aimed at combating Iran-backed Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah on Friday, after days of US-mediated talks in Washington.

According to a US State Department statement, the agreement outlines a structured process for disarming Hezbollah, dismantling terrorist infrastructure, and enabling the IDF to withdraw from Lebanon once the threat posed by Hezbollah is removed.

The agreement also established a US-facilitated trilateral Military Coordination Group for Lebanon (MCG4L) to ensure the implementation of the framework.

The US, according to the statement, will also take steps to improve the capabilities of the Lebanese Armed Forces and support Lebanese military efforts against Hezbollah.

In addition, the US pledged to contribute $100 million for humanitarian assistance to be coordinated with the United Nations.

A first step towards peace, prosperity, and mutual coexistence
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio commended Israeli and Lebanese leadership and delegations for their participation in the talks and for signing the agreement.

While Rubio noted that there is still much work ahead, he highlighted the importance of the framework and stated that the US is “honored to have played a part in bringing this together.”

“Today is the first step. This first step sometimes is the hardest one, but it’s an important one and the one we’ve taken together,” Rubio stated, adding that he hopes the agreement will bring about “a future of peace, a future of prosperity, a future of mutual coexistence.”

During the signing of the agreements, Israeli Ambassador to the US Yechiel Leiter praised the trilateral cooperation as a “historical” move towards peace between Israel and Lebanon.

“In my opening remarks four days ago, I expressed concern that this train was running off the tracks, that Iran and its proxies wanted a trainwreck,” Leiter recounted.

Full text of Israel-Lebanon ‘framework’ deal that includes slight IDF pullback

Ron Arad remains talks spark skepticism, ex Mossad official says negotiations could help search

Following a Lebanese report that contacts are underway to bring back the remains of Israeli navigator Ron Arad, who was captured in Lebanon in 1986, his friend Ronen Meir told 103FM on Wednesday that listeners should keep the matter in perspective: "We are overwhelmed with attempts and disappointments."

Meir, a friend of Arad who graduated with him from the flight course during their time in the IDF, spoke on 103FM with Prof. Aryeh Eldad and Ron Kaufman about the report.

In light of the report from Al Jadeed, according to which the political negotiations between Lebanon and Israel are expected to include the possibility of a deal in which Arad's remains would be exchanged for Lebanese prisoners, Meir dampened expectations.

"That sounds to me somewhat absurd, if not delusional," he said. "We are saturated with previous attempts of this kind. From my familiarity with our enemies and neighbors, this tune always plays, and we are saturated with disappointments on this matter."

"Let's assume that the Lebanese do indeed have information about Ron and want to bargain with it. The best and simplest thing they could do is send a sample so we can see whether there is someone to talk to. To refute it through a journalist does not seem to me like a serious channel for anyone who wants to deal with such a complicated issue."

Meir referred to Israel's past and present efforts: "It is worth noting that only a few weeks ago, the Israeli government sent a commando force with four Yas'ur helicopters into Lebanon in an attempt to recover Ron's body, and we almost left a great many dead there. With all the pain and my personal desire to solve the mystery of my friend, we need to be careful about fantasies and fleeing into unrealistic areas."

"The ethos of not abandoning a soldier should not go back to Ron. One can look two and a half years back and see what happened to that ethos when we had living civilians and soldiers in captivity, and some of them returned in body bags. The question is what price we are prepared to pay for that ethos. It is legitimate to use judgment," he continued.

To conclude, Meir recalled the family's position over the years: "In Ron's case, his mother Batia Arad gave her testament while she was still alive and said she did not want any soldier to risk his life if it is known that Ron is no longer alive."

"Tami Arad, my friend, said immediately that same night of the commando operation that 'we said from the outset that for Ron's body, not even one soldier should be put at risk.' If there were really anything to the reports, the first thing they would do is give a sample. How many samples have we already received that we have discovered were donkey bones? It simply does not seem serious to me."

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06/25 Links Pt2: Melanie Phillips: NYC’s black-red alliance of Islamism and ultra-leftism wants us to hate Israel and America; Israel to send aid mission Venezuela after earthquakes

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: NYC’s black-red alliance of Islamism and ultra-leftism wants us to hate Israel and America

Red-black extremists are now threatening establishment candidates in Colorado, Michigan and Wisconsin, while another radical leftist is poised to become mayor of Washington DC.

This process will metastasize even further very fast. Galvanized by the October 7 attacks and the way western elites subsequently turned against Israel, the Islamists believe they’re on the cusp of victory over America and its allies.

While their motivation has gone through the roof, their useful idiots in the West’s liberal establishment are refusing to see what’s staring them in the face. Instead, they’re obsessively sticking pins into effigies of Donald Trump, while acting as an echo chamber for the Islamists’ lies painting Israel as a demonic force in the world.

Although New York’s voters may nod along to these lies, most of them hardly rank Israel as of greater concern than things like the cost of living.

But Israel stands proxy for something else: a state that the public believe is grinding the faces of the poor and disadvantaged. Just like them. So a vote for those who hate “oppressive” Israel appears to them as a vote for the “oppressed” everywhere.

The Democrats imagine that they’re using the Islamists to promote left-wing policies. The truth is that the Islamists are using the Democratic party to turn the US into Ameristan.

People don’t take this seriously because they can’t believe it could ever happen to mighty America.

Look at Britain and believe it. This is how the western frog is being boiled slowly in the pot.

Alex Hearn: Rooney’s antizionism isn’t political comment but a creed: Israel is evil, its defeat salvation

None of this began on October 7, 2023. The atrocities of that day gave permission to people who were already converted. Rooney joined the boycott of Israel in 2021, refusing to let an Israeli publisher translate her novel into Hebrew while it stayed on sale in Chinese and Russian. That same year, academics went viral copying and pasting a single paragraph that declared opposition to the world's only Jewish state “integral” to their scholarship and “moral worldview”. They then instructed one another to evangelise others and “pass it on”. An entire worldview, copied and pasted, about a state thousands of miles away.

And the permission has had consequences. Attacks on Jews spiked the moment Hamas broadcast its atrocities, and they have not fallen back to where they were. The ideas surface now where they once stayed hidden – in workplaces, in the arts, and on the street. In Stockholm a few months ago they staged a piece of medieval theatre: a man dressed as the caricature of a Jew wearing a blood-soaked apron, holding a champagne flute of blood. He mimed the slaughter of a Palestinian woman while the crowd chanted “crush Zionism”.

It is an old habit. During the Dreyfus Affair, Frenchmen used the figure of the Jew to settle what kind of country France was. A victim of an antisemitic conspiracy, Captain Alfred Dreyfus was wrongfully accused and convicted of being a spy for Germany and imprisoned on Devil's Island in French Guiana. He was later cleared but the question behind his case – whether Jews truly belonged – was not. The philosopher Hannah Arendt described the Affair as a dress rehearsal for a performance staged decades later. In 1944 Dreyfus’s granddaughter, Madeleine Lévy, was murdered in Auschwitz. Her name was carved into his gravestone because she had no grave of her own.

The case against Dreyfus only broadened, from one man to a people. The question moved with the times: from “can a Jew be a citizen?” to “can Jews have a state?” Antizionist where once it was anti-Dreyfusard – only the right in dispute has changed. Back then, the French parliament had a debate about “Jewish infiltration”. Now in 2026, the British parliament just had a debate about “Israeli” infiltration. Same shtick, different century.

Rooney cannot be waved away as a masked figure at a march. She is one of the most gifted novelists of her generation, read by millions, and she has taken the oldest accusation in Europe and given it the vocabulary of the age. In her telling, to stand against the Jewish state is not merely permitted. It is the measure of whether you are a good person at all.

When religion receded it left a space – the need to feel good, and to belong. What looks like politics is really a faith, and what looks like a faith is really the search for a self. People build an identity out of their stance on what Jews represent, then call Jews the rootless ones. But the emptiness is their own.

Rising antisemitism ‘the biggest disgrace of our times’, says incoming Telegraph owner

The chief executive of The Telegraph’s incoming owners has described the resurgence of antisemitism among young people as “the biggest disgrace of our times”.

Speaking in London on Wednesday, Mathias Döpfner, CEO of Axel Springer, warned that hatred of Jews had become a “global export” in the aftermath of Hamas’s October 7 atrocities, with alarming levels of support among younger generations.

“The thing that worries me most is that antisemitism is now a global export, originating largely from Germany and Austria, and is particularly popular among very young audiences,” Döpfner told delegates at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) conference.

“That is for me the biggest disgrace of our times. I simply cannot believe it.”

Döpfner, who is also the controlling shareholder of the German media giant, reflected on the failure of the international response to the attacks.

Despite what he described as the clear distinction between perpetrators and victims on October 7, he said the aftermath had produced not a surge of solidarity with Jews, but a wave of hostility.

“After October 7, where the question of who started it, who was the perpetrator and who was the victim, was so obvious, that did not create a global wave of solidarity, but a wave of new antisemitism,” he said.

“That goes way beyond Jewish life. It affects us all. Jews are the first victims in an open society model.”

His comments drew rapturous applause from the several hundred audience members attending the conference at the vast Olympia venue in Hammersmith.

Axel Springer has one of the most explicit pro-Jewish and pro-Zionist policies of any major Western media company. Its corporate constitution, known as the Essentials, includes a formal commitment to “support the right of existence of the State of Israel and oppose all forms of antisemitism”.

Is The Media Turning a Blind Eye to Montreal Shooter’s Antisemitism?

Is the media fully explaining the ideological drive behind the actions of Seth Scott Hatfield, whose shooting rampage in the heart of Montreal on June 22 led to the deaths of a police officer and a Jewish civilian?

Based on a manifesto that was made public following the attack, both the Canadian media and international outlets (such as CNN, The Guardian, and Le Monde) have compiled an ideological profile of Hatfield, focusing on his stated hatred for feminism, liberalism, capitalism, pornography, “favored males,” and immigrants.

The manifesto reads as though it is inspired by a mixture of revolutionary Marxism and incel (involuntary celibate) culture and is being presented as such by the mainstream media.

However, one aspect of Hatfield’s hate-filled screed that has received little to no mention by the media is his abhorrence of the Jewish people.

Either his antisemitism is mentioned in passing several paragraphs into an article or it is not mentioned altogether.

Despite this lack of media attention, Hatfield’s hatred for the Jews is not an insignificant part of his violent ideology.

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