12/28 Links: The Global War on the Jews; All eyes on Florida as Trump, Netanyahu face Gaza ceasefire test; How Western ‘charity’ bought Hamas’s rockets; Starmer welcomes ‘extremist’ to Britain

From Ian:

The Global War on the Jews

Jews everywhere are confronting a period of danger and moral testing. Antisemitism no longer hides at the margins. It organizes, radicalizes, and kills. The global surge in antisemitism does not arise organically. States and terrorist organizations deliberately export violence, incitement, and ideology far beyond Israel's borders. The same actors who target Israel actively work to destabilize Jewish life worldwide. What begins in Israel never ends there.

During Israel's campaign against Hamas, calls for a "ceasefire" from anti-Israel activists exposed their true intent. They demanded that Israel should halt its defense. Hamas and its allies, it seemed, could continue attacking Israeli civilians without consequence. That same moral inversion now fuels violence across the Diaspora. Selective outrage and the erasure of Jewish vulnerability have moved from protest rhetoric to physical attack.

Since the truce between Israel and Hamas took effect in early October, violence against Jews worldwide has intensified. When the world delegitimizes Jewish self-defense, Jewish life everywhere becomes more vulnerable.

In Israel, a deeper clarity is evident. Israeli society understands that security cannot be subcontracted, that moral clarity cannot be outsourced, and that Jewish continuity demands courage. The festival of Hanukkah rejects the idea that Jews must justify their existence on terms set by others. Israel embodies that refusal.

Only in Israel do Judaism, Christianity, and Islam coexist freely and openly under the protection of law. That reality stands in sharp contrast to the regions controlled by the forces whose narratives dominate much of today's international discourse.

College Middle Eastern studies departments are broken — shut them down to end campus radicalism

Shut down the Middle Eastern studies departments in our universities. I was a student in one of these programs, and I say it plainly: shut them down.

A majority are corrupted and compromised. Through these departments, dozens of American college students have at best been indoctrinated to despise this country and whitewash the crimes of terrorists, and at worst pushed toward genuine radicalization and extremist plots.

These programs have been the soft underbelly through which universities quietly accept foreign money and, with it, foreign influence that dictates curriculum, hiring, admissions, scholarships and more. They serve as conduits that funnel cash into extracurricular groups, adding an extra layer of protection and plausible deniability while financing the encampments and harassment campaigns that have erupted on campus in recent years.

Anti-Israel protesters demonstrate outside Columbia University on Sept. 3, in New York City. (Yuki Iwamura/AP)

This influence has been seeping into our institutions for more than two decades, but it has become brazen precisely because there have been few, if any, consequences. As someone who has had a front‑row seat to the jihadification of American academia, this is where much of it begins. Shut it down.

The rot is no longer theoretical. It has names, funding streams and institutional addresses. At Columbia University, Mahmood Mamdani, father of New York City’s mayor-elect, has been criticized for presenting Israel as a purely colonial project while downplaying the terrorism of groups such as Hamas, shaping how students in African and Middle Eastern studies understand the region.

At Oberlin College, Mohammad Jafar Mahallati, a former Iranian diplomat, has faced allegations that he helped cover up the Iran regime’s mass executions in the 1980s and has spoken of Hamas "resistance" in ways that minimize its terrorism.

And at Princeton University, Seyed Hossein Mousavian, another former Iran regime official, has been accused of echoing the talking points of Tehran while appearing to legitimize Hamas and Hezbollah in public remarks, all under the banner of Middle East security studies.

When the person shaping course offerings, speakers and graduate funding openly aligns with a brutal authoritarian regime, why should anyone be surprised when students emerge hostile to Israel, sympathetic to designated terror groups and convinced America is the villain of the story?

The money behind this intellectual capture is staggering. Saudi Arabia has poured tens of millions into specific Middle East and Islamic studies hubs, from the King Fahd Center in Arkansas to Alwaleed-bin-Talal–branded programs at Harvard and Georgetown that fund chairs, research and student programming focused on Islam and the Middle East.

According to a 2022 report by the National Association of Scholars, a higher education think tank, Qatar has become one of the largest foreign donors to U.S. higher education since 2001, with several billion dollars routed through branch campuses and partnerships that shape what is taught about the Middle East on both Doha and U.S. soil.

This is not philanthropy in the abstract; it is targeted influence over who gets hired, what gets researched, and which narratives about Israel, Jews and the West are elevated or suppressed.

Book Review: “Be A Refusenik: A Jewish Student’s Survival Guide”

A delightful lithograph hangs in the Berkeley Jewish Art Museum, a block west of the University of California’s rattled flagship campus. It shows its creator, originally a Soviet underground artist, Eugene Abeshous, dressed as a Fiddler on the Roof extra, disembarking at Eretz Yisrael. The work is called Jonah and the Whale in Haifa Port because instead of a cruise liner, its protagonist exits the gaping mouth of a sea monster. Abeshous tells the story that was once on the front pages of American newspapers, but is now nearly forgotten—that of Soviet Jews leaving the belly of the beast.

In her recently released Be A Refusenik: A Jewish Student’s Survival Guide, historian of Soviet Jewry Izabella Tabarovsky used the struggle of the Soviet Jews in the 1970s and 80s as an inspiration for the young Americans facing antisemitism on college campuses. Tabarovsky put the half-century-old experiences of my and her parents’ generation side-by-side with the conflicts defining the lives of our children. Even if we are “separated by decades, borders, and ideologies,” she showed how the mindset of refuseniks can—and does—inspire the students today.

Refuseniks were the Soviet Jewish dissidents who were denied permission to make aliya. My maternal uncle, for instance, applied for his exit visa in 1980, lost his scientist job, had many unfortunate encounters with the sadistic Soviet bureaucracy, and was finally granted passage in 1987, after he made it on the Ronald Reagan list of 100 refuseniks.

My uncle was perhaps luckier than most, but this was a fairly typical refusenik fate. Yet when Tabarovsky tells American students to be refuseniks, she highlights another meaning of the word—the one who refuses to surrender to the forces of evil. Her book teaches how to dive into Jewish history to find the inner strength to resist.

In one key respect, Soviet antisemitism was similar to the contemporary American antisemitism—it sells itself as antizionism. In fact—and this is something Tabarovsky discussed in her Legal Insurrection lecture—our antizionism was invented by the Soviets; it was a product of the virtual freakout over the 1967 defeat of its Arab clients. The Antizionist tropes animating the vocabulary of American college professors are traceable to Brezhnev-era Soviet propaganda.

Antizionism, Tabarovsky shows, was something that Soviet Jews, like their contemporary American counterparts, experienced on a personal level—the hysteria whipped up in the media and echoed in local Communist meetings made Jewish existence unsafe. But the defiant Zionists inverted fear and responded with pride. For instance, when his bosses brought out Nathan Sharansky for a Soviet humiliation ritual before his entire institute and started drilling him about his Jewish ideological leanings, Sharansky responded by giving a brief lecture on modern Israeli history—and found an “intrigued” audience in his co-workers, many of whom, I’m sure, found it liberating to hear Soviet propaganda exposed.

Read More

12/27 Links: Anti-Zionism is Anti-Jewish, Anti-West, Anti-America and Anti-Joy; Australian Jews no longer feel safe to live freely and openly; Italian police charge nine with funding Hamas; What does Israel stand to gain from recognizing Somaliland?

From Ian:

Anti-Zionism is Anti-Jewish, Anti-West, Anti-America and Anti-Joy

So far, we’ve been telling the world that antisemitism and antizionism are bad for the Jews and for Israel, but with Israel becoming a pariah state, much of the world has shrugged and said: who cares?

With our backs against the wall, we have no choice but to aim high. To win the long game, we must raise the stakes and start focusing on what is good and bad for the world. Antizionism may be a singular sin and a uniquely evil expression of Jew-hatred that targets Jews as Zionists, but it’s a lot worse than that.

It’s also anti-West, anti-America, anti-truth, anti-justice, anti-joy and anti-world. Antizionism, just like anti-Judaism and antisemitism, is a movement against the common good. It has become a hater’s paradise where all haters and liars are welcome. We must invest more resources in making that case.

If antizionism is bad for the world, the corollary, as I argued recently, is also true: Zionism is great for the world. As Joshua Hoffman writes on his Substack: “The West is losing something essential that Israelis do best. While many people in the West feel embarrassed by their own countries, Israelis carry deep-seated pride rooted in history, responsibility, and a clear-eyed understanding of reality.”

Just as antizionism is rooted in Jew-hatred, Zionism is rooted in Judaism. The two are inseparable. If there is joy in Judaism, there is joy in Zionism. If there is courage in Zionism, there is courage in Judaism. By keeping these two pillars of Jewish identity tightly bonded, we can craft a winning and unapologetic Jewish message for the next century: Zionism and Judaism are great for the world.

In short, to have any chance of combatting the global evil of antizionism, we must put our best two feet forward: Jewish and Zionist.

We owe it to those decimated Jewish souls I saw in “Nuremberg.”

Palestinians must renounce culture of deception for real peace with Israel

Yet here, too, the familiar pattern emerges. This is not ideological transformation but tactical adaptation. Not abandonment of doctrine, but message management.

The phased approach has not vanished; it has simply adopted a modern suit. As fears of sanctions grow and as renewed threats loom – including the possibility of a future US administration designating the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization – rhetoric softens and declarations become more measured.

This does not indicate a change in essence. Political Islam, across its various branches, operates in stages: first “da’wah” – social, educational, and religious influence through nonviolent means – and only later confrontation. Those who fail to recognize this risk mistaking conciliatory statements for ideological surrender.

Israeli experience teaches that actions, not words, must be examined. Arafat spoke of peace while preparing for war. Abbas speaks of civic integration, yet has not truly disavowed the ideological foundations from which he emerged.

Formal disengagement from a Shura body or institution does not erase ideology; it is a technical adjustment designed to reassure, obscure, and delay confrontation.

The problem is not only political but also cultural – a culture in which deception is not an exception but a tool. One message is crafted for Western audiences, another for internal consumption. Peace is treated not as an objective, but as an instrument.

The Oslo Accords taught Israel a painful lesson: peace is not secured through documents alone. It is measured through sincerity, education, and genuine shifts in worldview.

As long as the Palestinian political spectrum, in its various forms, remains committed to the phased doctrine, every conciliatory declaration must be approached with skepticism.

Italian police charge nine with funding Hamas

Seven people were arrested in Italy on suspicion of raising some $8 million for the Gaza-ruling terrorist group of Hamas, police said on Saturday.

International arrest warrants were issued in connection with the case for two additional individuals located outside the country, AFP reported.

Mohammad Hannoun, president of the Palestinian Association in Italy, was among those arrested, local media reported, according to AFP.

The nine suspects are charged with financing “associations based in Gaza, the Palestinian territories, or Israel, owned, controlled or linked to Hamas,” under the guise of “humanitarian purposes for the Palestinian people,” the report continued.

More than 71% of the $8 million was directed to financing Hamas or entities affiliated with the Islamist dictatorship, the Italian police was cited as saying.

Some of the money went to “family members implicated in terrorist attacks,” the statement further read.

Italy’s ruling party, Brothers of Italy, spearheaded by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, said on X that the left should “humbly apologize” given the arrests.

The Italian government has denounced “for a long time” local associations with ties to terrorism, “but the left attacked us along with its media circus,” the party tweeted in Italian following the police’s statement.

Read More

12/26 Links Pt2: When “One Religion” Becomes “Zionism”; From Tehran to Turning Point USA: The political utility of Jew-hatred; What is Ireland's Problem With Israel?; Top 10 Worst U.N. Moments of 2025

From Ian:

When “One Religion” Becomes “Zionism”

I was listening to The Interview, the New York Times podcast hosted by David Marchese, featuring Raja Shehadeh, a Palestinian writer and activist. It was rebroadcast on The Daily’s Saturday edition. The conversation itself was interesting; I recommend it in order to understand what is seen today by Palestinians as a moderate view, one that supports peace. But there was one moment- very specific- that genuinely stopped me cold. And it came from the interviewer.

At that point in the interview, the guest, Raja Shehadeh, made an extreme claim- not about Israel as a state, and not about Zionism as a political movement, but about religion.

“Palestine has always been a place for three religions… and now one religion is trying to dominate and say it’s the only one that is going to be allowed.”

This was not a slip of the tongue. It was a clear statement. One religion. Dominating the others. Deciding who will be “allowed.”

Historically, only two political frameworks in the Eretz Yisrael/Palestine provided full freedom of religion- equal protection for Jews, Muslims, and Christians alike. The first was the British Mandate. Whatever its colonial flaws, it explicitly enshrined equal religious rights. Before that, under Muslim rule, Jews paid special taxes for being Jewish, as did Christians (jizya, poll tax), and both often paid to access holy sites.

The second polity is the State of Israel, where freedom of religion is protected by law, Arabic is an official language, and religious practice is legally safeguarded. One can- and should- report on extremist groups and Jewish far-right violence, trying to destory this legal and political framework. But those are not the law of the land.

And yet, when Shehadeh framed his argument in explicitly religious terms- about Jews as Jews- the interviewer probably panicked. Marchese immediately intervened. Not to challenge the premise, or bring facts to the discussuin, but rather to reframe it to the political code he finds appropriate :

“Well, you know, what you’re describing is Zionism.”

This was not a neutral clarification. It was a substitution. A sweeping religious accusation was hurridly converted into a political one.

In doing so, Marchese performed two moves at once. First, he corrected his interviewee- implicitly telling him that the “problem” is not Jews but Zionists. Second, he smuggled in a definition of Zionism that bears little resemblance to reality, implying that Zionism is about religious domination.

From Tehran to Turning Point USA: The political utility of Jew-hatred

The threat picture: Iran amplifying far-right antisemitism through social-media operations, Qatar cultivating conservative influencers through access and economic incentives, Russia weaponizing deceptively edited content, and China bankrolling radical antisemitic campus networks. Different vectors, same target. This is antisemitism’s operational advantage: Its utility transcends ideology. A Nazi and a Marxist, a theocrat and an atheist, a grifter and a communist operative can all deploy identical conspiracy theories while advancing separate strategic objectives.

This is how institutional defenses fail—not through the initial breach but through immune system collapse. When calling out Holocaust denial makes you the target rather than the threat actor, then you’ve already lost. When boundary enforcement becomes boundary violation, there are no boundaries. The attack chain from “perfidious Jews” to “death penalty” to “Cookie Monster” ovens to mass-casualty events isn’t theoretical. We have the historical case studies. The progression is consistent and accelerating.

When this hatred achieves mainstream acceptance (amplified by podcasters with millions of followers, weaponized by hostile state actors, defended as “free speech”) and produces attacks like Bondi Beach, you’re not observing normal political friction. You’re watching the mechanics of how democracies fail to protect their most vulnerable citizens.

The threat requires decisive action. Platforms must enforce existing terms of service against coordinated inauthentic behavior. Law enforcement must treat incitement to genocide as the criminal act it is, not protected speech.

Both conservative and progressive institutions must choose between coalition maintenance and moral clarity. Right-wing leaders must decide whether platforming Holocaust deniers is an acceptable price for audience growth. Left-wing activists must confront how foreign adversaries have weaponized their movements to advance antisemitic agendas. Americans with platforms across the political spectrum must understand that silence functions as operational support.

The historical pattern is clear, and the contemporary threat indicators are impossible to ignore. Antisemitism has been repackaged as a multipurpose political and economic tool: profitable for podcasters, strategically valuable for hostile states and algorithmically optimized for maximum reach. What began as ancient hatred has evolved into modern infrastructure—and that infrastructure is producing body counts.

The question is whether American institutions, left and right, will respond to these threat indicators before the next attack, and the one after that, and the one after that.

‘Palestine 36’ is propaganda by subtraction

There’s a reason why “Palestine 36” avoids al-Husseini: His real record contradicts the film’s narrative. His worldview, which was defined by eliminationist antisemitism fused with religious absolutism, existed long before 1936 and did not end with the Arab Revolt.

During World War II, al-Husseini was a committed Nazi Party collaborator. He lived in a mansion provided by the Third Reich; met repeatedly with Nazi hierarchy; broadcast Arabic-language propaganda for Nazi radio, urging listeners to “kill the Jews wherever you find them”; blocked efforts to rescue Jewish children; and helped recruit Muslim SS divisions responsible for atrocities in the Balkans. Prosecutors at the Nuremberg trials after the end of World War II described him as a collaborator “of the highest order.”

This is not a figure who fits comfortably into a romantic narrative of anti-colonial resistance.

And that erasure is not accidental; it is political. Acknowledging al-Husseini forces recognition of the conflict’s true roots: an Arab nationalism in Mandatory Palestine shaped primarily by Islamist and European bigotry, and ideological rejection of any Jewish sovereignty, not by anti-colonial grievance. The Mufti didn’t oppose the partition of the land because of borders; he opposed granting Jews any civil or national rights whatsoever.

A film that acknowledged these truths would undercut the preferred narrative that the conflict began in 1948 or 1967, or that it is purely an anti-colonial dispute. It would reveal what has always been the case: Jews in Mandatory Palestine were not colonizers. Rather, they were a vulnerable minority facing organized campaigns to eliminate them or keep them permanently powerless and stateless.

Modern Palestinian leadership has never disavowed al-Husseini. His portrait hangs in official offices. Schoolbooks echo his rhetoric. Hamas praises him outright. The hatred ideology that he championed animated the pogroms of the 1920s and 1930s, just as surely as it animated the Hamas-led atrocities in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

This is why films like “Palestine 36” must erase him. Because restoring him to the story restores the truth—and the truth shatters too many cherished political narratives.

And here lies the film’s deeper deception: “Palestine 36” is not history. It is propaganda by subtraction—a film that invites viewers to mourn the colonized while concealing the internal purges, the anti-Jewish violence, the ideological extremism and the Nazi collaboration that shaped the entire conflict.

The war against Jewish self-determination did not begin with Israel’s declaration in 1948 or with the Arab Revolt of 1936. It began when leaders like al-Husseini chose hatred over coexistence, rejection over compromise and alliance with genocidal tyrants over peace with their Jewish neighbors.

Read More

12/26 Links Pt1: Two killed in terror attacks in northern Israel; Israel is first to recognize Somaliland; U.S. Involvement in Gaza Is a Strategic Opportunity

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: Mike Waltz on Gaza, Iran, and Keeping the UN in Check

Mike Waltz is having an unusual experience as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, a job that does not usually come with a honeymoon phase. Yet the former congressman and national security adviser took office in September and a mere two months later the Security Council gave the Trump administration a big win by passing a resolution affirming the president’s plan for postwar Gaza.

As a result, Waltz may be America’s first UN ambassador in some time to describe the atmosphere there, at least for now, as “pleasant.”

Waltz sees such support, he told me this week after wrapping up a weeklong trip to Israel and Jordan, as validation for the fact that “the president and his team are trying something very new and bold and innovative.”

Waltz visited the Keren Shalom crossing on the Egyptian border and the American civil-military coordination center in Kiryat Gat and sees Israel clearly holding up its end of the deal. Aid flow into Gaza has surged: The cease-fire plan called for Israel to allow 600 trucks of food and supplies in daily, and the day Waltz left had seen 900 aid trucks enter the enclave. “For the rest of the world that is saying the international community is not doing enough or that the Israeli government is getting in the way of basic lifesaving aid going in to the people that have suffered at the hands of Hamas, that’s just false,” Waltz says. “The data doesn’t back it up.”

There was almost a breakthrough on another front while Waltz was in Israel. Hamas recovered remains of what many hoped was the body of the last missing hostage, Ran Gvili, but it was a false alarm. Waltz did meet with Gvili’s parents and came away impressed with their son’s heroism and sacrifice. “The reason he was off duty that day is because he had a broken shoulder. And what did he do when he got the alert [that Hamas had invaded]? He threw his gear on his only good shoulder and ran towards the sounds of the guns, and over a dozen dead terrorists were found where he died.”

The search for Gvili’s body continues as all parties work toward further implementation of the Gaza plan, including, Waltz said, Egypt and Qatar. Waltz also mentioned that expanding the Abraham Accords remains an administration priority.

When calling for Israelis to be killed is deemed acceptable

For months my producers at Talk have been working with me to try to get answers out of Avon & Somerset Police about how the investigation is going, whether Pascal Robinson-Foster was ever arrested (he was not, but he was questioned) and we ran a graphic on the screen on many occasions, calculating the number of days the investigation was dragging on. On numerous occasions we asked chief constable Sarah Crew to be interviewed on Talk. She refused each time, and continues to do so.

And now we have the verdict from her and her CPS colleagues: despite televised evidence, despite months of investigation, despite 200 people being interviewed on a basis not fully clarified by Avon & Somerset Police, there is ‘insufficient evidence’ for Pascal Robinson-Foster to be prosecuted. He initially denied he was calling for the deaths of individual IDF soldiers, with evidence inconveniently turning up from a concert just weeks before Glastonbury when he had done just that. Robinson-Foster has repeated the call in other international concerts.

Free speech is a fundamental part of any free society. The free speech we enjoy in the United Kingdom is denied to citizens of most of the Arab world and it is certainly not encouraged by Hamas terrorists in Gaza. But Robinson-Foster’s call was not for the IDF to cease its activity. He was not taking issue with the IDF’s tactics, or even doing something such as calling them ‘murderers’ guilty of ‘genocide’. All of these sentiments are ones with which most Jewish News readers will disagree, but will not actively believe people should be arrested or charged for saying.

But now, as 2025 closes, we are told by both Avon & Somerset Police and the Crown Prosecution Service that in the United Kingdom it is absolutely fine to call for the death of the 169,500 active personnel in the conscript IDF army and its 465,000 reserve soldiers. Many antisemites will sleep more soundly at that.

Sir Keir Starmer lights his menorah candles, has Jewish leaders into Number 10 for a Chanukah reception and says he will do all he can to stop antisemitism. Perhaps he could start by having a word with the organisation he once led, the Crown Prosecution Service, reminding them what antisemitism actually is, if the Prime Minister himself in fact knows. It would be helpful if it didn’t take yet more years for our ruling class to work out basic facts. It may even save a few Jewish lives.

Yehuda Teitelbaum: You Don’t Care About "Palestine" Part 1

You don’t care about Palestine.

How do I know?

One Word. Sudan.

CNN has just published a detailed, months-long investigation documenting ethnically targeted mass killings carried out by Sudan’s army and its allied militias. The reporting describes civilians being executed, bodies dumped into canals, and mass graves concealed until satellite imagery revealed wrapped corpses surfacing as the water receded. Investigators traced responsibility back to senior levels of command.

The scale is absolutely staggering. More than 150,000 civilians are believed to have been killed. Nearly 12 million people have been displaced. Entire regions are facing famine. Non-Arab communities have been targeted at checkpoints, driven from their villages, and in some cases wiped out entirely. Women interviewed by investigators described watching their children executed. Weeks later, bodies were still being carried downstream by the canals. A UN investigator quoted by CNN described the campaign as a “targeted extermination of people.”

If concern for civilian life were really the driving force behind today’s activism, Sudan would be impossible to ignore. Yet there are no campus encampments demanding action, no mass ceasefire marches, no viral influencer monologues, and no celebrities posting flags or slogans.

The usual explanation is that Israel is different because the United States supports it militarily, and that protests are really about American complicity rather than the tragedy itself. I don’t buy it. If mass killing only matters when it can be blamed on your own country, that is a deeply self-centered way of engaging with human suffering.

These same voices regularly insist that silence is complicity and that there is always something one must do, even when the odds of success are low. That principle is suddenly abandoned when Sudan comes up.

No one genuinely believes that protesting Israel under a Trump administration is likely to change Israeli policy. People protest anyway because they believe public expression itself has moral value. That logic does not disappear because the victims are Sudanese, yet it is treated as if it does.

There is also a tendency to pretend that the United States is simply powerless in Sudan, which is not true. This is not an argument for American troops on the ground, and it is reasonable to oppose that idea. But the United States is the most powerful military and diplomatic actor on the planet. If it wanted to exert serious pressure, coordinate large-scale evacuations, isolate leadership, enforce consequences, or push negotiations using the full weight of its influence, it could. Even short of military action, there are many tools available.

The reality is not that nothing can be done. It is that no one wants to do anything. Sudan does not offer the emotional payoff or political symbolism that Israel does. It does not fit neatly into Western ideological narratives, and it does not allow people to perform virtue without cost.

Sudan has everything people claim to care about: ethnic cleansing, mass graves, famine, millions of refugees, and overwhelming evidence documented by satellite imagery, whistleblowers, and international investigators. Even CNN could not soften what it found.

And still, there is silence.

Read More

12/25 Links: Would Jesus Be Safe in a Synagogue Today?; Ben Shapiro vs the crank right; The King hails heroes who ‘ran into danger’ at Bondi; Rabbi’s car torched in Melbourne

From Ian:

Jeff Jacoby: Would Jesus Be Safe in a Synagogue Today?

I used to scoff when some American Jews told opinion surveys that antisemitism in the U.S. was "a very serious problem." I thought Jews had been blessed in America with a degree of tolerance and goodwill virtually unparalleled. America's story was rooted in Judeo-Christian soil. The founders of the American republic believed that they, like the Israelites of old, had been led to a Promised Land.

Jews seemed familiar - the original protagonists in the very story the founders believed they were continuing. Jews were embraced as heirs to the scriptures Americans revered. George Washington in his famous 1790 letter to the Jewish community of Newport, R.I., said that in America, every Jew would live safely "and there shall be none to make him afraid."

But the golden age has been replaced by a grim new reality in which antisemitism is being normalized with terrifying speed. Today, American synagogues and Jewish schools must spend a fortune on security. Jewish-owned businesses are targeted by antisemitic mobs, podcasters with huge followings platform Holocaust deniers, and social media is awash in anti-Jewish venom.

Rev. Daniel Joslyn-Siemiatkoski, an Episcopal priest and director of the Center for Christian-Jewish Learning at Boston College, noted the difference between synagogues with rigorous security protocols and nearby churches where people were free to walk in and out of the open doors. "Why are we Americans willing to live like this? Why are Christians, who worship Jesus the Jew, willing to stand for this? Why do we stand by as Jews in our communities are threatened by antisemitic graffiti, as Jewish children are bullied in their schools, and as more and more Jews feel they must hide their Jewish identity for fear of harassment - or worse?"

"Jesus lived as a Jew and taught as one. The gospels recount that one of the first acts of his public ministry was to teach in his home synagogue. If Jesus were to reappear today, what would he make of armed guards and locked doors at the entrance of U.S. synagogues?... Antisemitism threatens all of us. Rarely do those who target Jews with persecution, threats, or violence stop there. They come for others....Jesus would not keep silent at the sight of Jewish worshipers who need armed guards to pray in safety."

Victor Davis Hanson: We know the reasons for violence against Jews — but refuse to say them aloud

Indeed, most polls show that 60% of Democrats favor the Palestinians over the Israelis. Translated, that means they prefer a terrorist autocracy over a Western liberal constitutional government.

The right used to be a unified corrective to left-wing antisemitism. It still polls nearly 70% in favor of Israel.

For a while longer, it is far more likely to condemn antisemitic violence than the left.

But recently, its own base, in varying degrees, has come full circle and joined the left in its distaste for Israel and Jews in general.

The new anti-Israel right despises Israel and the US support of it, either in terms that are commercial (there are more Arabs, with more money and oil), cowardly (trashing Jews does not earn terrorist reprisals; rebuking Muslims can), political (Jews more often vote Democratic), or simply antisemitic (cabals of Jews control Wall Street, Hollywood, the media, etc.).

Once-fringe antisemites like Nick Fuentes are now welcomed to air their views openly, but mostly the conspiracy venom is of the more insidious sort, like “I’m just throwing this out there. . .” or “Here is something to consider. . .”

In the last few weeks, we have been told — without any evidence — by right-wing influencers that the Jews may well have had a hand in killing Charlie Kirk, in bombing an Iranian nuclear facility, in pressuring the Maduro kleptocracy and in the 9/11 slaughter.

One hallmark of the new right-wing furor against Jews and Israel is the strange symbiosis they employ.

Formerly edgy podcasters become vicarious hosts of virulent antisemites. The partnerships are a way of not directly owning up to their toxicity but just “putting it out there.”

Candace Owens initially championed Kanye West (“I’m a bit sleepy tonight but when I wake up, I’m going death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE”).

Then she graduated to expressing her own old antisemitic tropes: “There is just a very small ring of specific people who are using the fact that they are Jewish to shield themselves from any criticism. . . . All Americans should want answers because this appears to be something that is quite sinister.”

Tucker Carlson hosted critics of the US effort against Hitler in World War II and Israel-behind-it conspiracists before escalating to inviting Nick Fuentes on in a mostly friendly manner — which might be attributed to his interview format, except he has attacked fellow conservatives far more than has odious Fuentes.

But now Carlson himself too throws out story-line hints about just maybe Jews’ involvement in Charlie Kirk’s death, or a sort of/kind of Jewish effort behind 9/11, or perhaps it was those Jews eating hummus, not the Roman prefect of Judea who ordered Jesus killed for supposed sedition — a common fate of any provincial residents who even appeared to defy the absolute authority of the Roman imperial state.

Carlson strangely categorized Israel as an “insignificant” country. But is not Israel a democratic Western outpost in a sea of Middle East autocracy, the most technically advanced and scientifically sophisticated nation for its size in the world and the ancient home of the Judeo-Christian tradition?

Somehow, many on the right forgot who funds the virulently anti-American mouthpiece Al-Jazeera, or where the 9/11 murderers came from, or who has killed Americans in Syria, Lebanon and on the Red Sea, or whom the Muslim Brotherhood, ISIS and theocratic Iran have vowed to destroy.

And as for Oct. 7 and what followed, Israel waited in vain for nearly three weeks for Hamas to give up the 3,000 terrorists who murdered 1,219 Jews, wounded 3,400 and took 254 hostages before mounting a full invasion of Gaza.

Where does it all end?

Either there will be an 11th-hour Western intolerance of antisemitism, a limit of student visas and immigration from the illiberal nations of the Middle East, a return to melting-pot assimilation, an end to DEI tribalism and a reform of the weaponized university curricula — or we will see more images of gunmen shooting Jews as if they were mere animals.

Ben Shapiro vs the crank right

If this contrarianism were simply about ‘owning the libs’, it would be of no real consequence. However, ‘just asking questions’ has become a right-wing ploy to promote conspiracy theories while maintaining plausible deniability. And in a world where clicks generate cash and algorithms favour outrage, there’s a financial incentive to go all in on the outlandish. All this matters because it’s doing significant brand damage and shattering trust in institutions.

Douglas Murray’s recent bust-up with podcaster Joe Rogan and comedian Dave Smith demarcates this new dividing line on the right. The two-hour conversation hit a brick wall over whether to trust experts or spurn them.

This schism is having real-world effects in the realm of foreign policy. Thanks to the America Firsters, Uncle Sam can no longer be seen as a reliable ally, even at a time when Europe is facing Russian aggression.

This new form of conservatism is also redrawing the battle lines of the culture war. In recent years, the right has seemed like a paragon of reason compared with the left, which has imbibed woke orthodoxies, from critical race theory to trans activism. That is no longer the case.

I don’t sign up to everything Shapiro has to offer. I part ways with him on abortion and gun control, for example. But he’s right to stand up for traditional conservatism, which approaches new ideas with suspicion and defends institutions.

What does this new intake stand for?

Read More

12/24 Links Pt2: David Mamet: Jews Face Horrors With Humor; Concert of former captive Alon Ohel sells out in hours; Abbas: Marwan Barghouti’s release a top priority

From Ian:

David Mamet: Jews Face Horrors With Humor

That the sun revolves around the Earth explains dawn but renders astronomy impossible. Similarly, of antisemitism, we are the victim of an error in logic: mistaking the effect for the cause.

It is a heartbreaking but understandable Jewish fantasy that antisemitism can be addressed by changing others’ opinions or our own behavior. Which is to say, by becoming more understanding of our oppressor’s need to be placated.

Jew-hatred exploded after the Oct. 7 massacre in response to Israeli “forgetfulness” of our historic status as beggars—existing only on the gracious sufferance of others. (Note that even the supposedly humane term “tolerance” means the ability to abide the noxious.)

Current antisemitic savagery echoes the South’s fear of and responses to slave revolts. The enslaved asserted the truth the oppressors feared above all: that they were actual human beings. The worried insistence on the contrary was found not only in law but, even more revealingly, in humor, where the punchline of any “joke” could be a dehumanization of blacks, demanding the complicity of laughter. One can’t take back a laugh.

Antisemitism has nothing to do with Jews. It is equivalent to child sacrifice: the offering to pagan gods of the lives of the unprotected. It emerges, historically, when a sufficient mass of the populace has become terrified into unreason and ceded control into the hands of the evil but assured. Pagan societies fearing the wrath of unknowable gods fed them innocent lives. The fearful of our age, unsettled by unassimilable change, seek security in mass thought and relief in violence. That’s all.

How can we know that one thing is truer than another? If it is sadder. I conclude not with a joke but with a proverb at the essence of most Jewish jokes: What is as whole as a Jew with a broken heart?

Slain journalist Daniel Pearl’s father charts recent ‘Zionophobia’ rise in new book

In 2002, Judea Pearl’s son, Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, was kidnapped and murdered in Pakistan while reporting on religious extremist groups in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. A video showed the captive journalist making coerced statements before he was killed. In one, Daniel Pearl said that he was Jewish, as were his parents.

Judea Pearl has not stopped thinking about that message. With his late wife Ruth Pearl and their two daughters, he established the Daniel Pearl Foundation to honor his son, including through a dialogue program with Muslim journalists. More recently, the Israeli-American scholar has also been contemplating what it means to be Jewish in the post-October 7, 2023, landscape.

A professor of computer science at the University of California, Los Angeles and a frequent op-ed contributor to Jewish media outlets, Pearl has had a front-row seat to witness changing attitudes toward Israel among American university students, especially after the bloody October 7 Hamas onslaught on Israel that killed 1,200 and kidnapped 251, and Israel’s subsequent war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Now Pearl has compiled some of his columns into a book, titled “Coexistence and Other Fighting Words: Selected Writings of Judea Pearl 2002-2025.”

Released on December 10, the book shows Pearl is as creative a thinker on the op-ed page as he is in the science lab. He coins multiple terms and phrases — notably “Zionophobia,” which he distinguishes from antisemitism.

“In one breath, it’s the denial of the Jewish people’s right to self-determination anywhere in the Middle East,” Pearl told The Times of Israel regarding Zionophobia. “It’s a simple definition.”

And, he argues, it’s what university administrators should be focusing on instead of antisemitism.

“We have been constantly speaking against antisemitism, not against anti-Zionism,” Pearl said. “The minute you mention antisemitism, you lose the game. Because someone will rush to appoint a task force, the task force will invite philosophers, the philosophers will climb Mt. Olympus, and you’ve lost 10 years of philosophical discussion in which nothing is being done. Antisemitism thus becomes a license for inaction — if not worse.”

Throughout the book, Pearl is unafraid to make similarly counterintuitive claims.

He mines primary sources for evidence that early Zionists such as Chaim Weizmann, Vladimir Jabotinsky and David Ben-Gurion sought a measure of accommodation with the native Arab population of Palestine. In defending Jewish ties to the land of Israel, he contends that indigeneity doesn’t have to stem from physical connection to a place — it can also derive from cultural attachment, such as the many mentions of Zion in the birkat hamazon prayer after eating bread, or the Jewish pilgrimage holiday of Sukkot. He compares today’s anti-Zionist Jews to coreligionists of the past who rebelled against mainstream thinking and were eventually forgotten by history — such as the Karaites, or the Sabateans.

Readers of the book will also learn about Pearl’s family background, which contains a significant amount of tragedy. In addition to the loss of his son in 2002, the author’s grandfather was murdered at Auschwitz during the Holocaust.

Yet, Pearl added, “I know that his last thoughts were about his grandson [me] growing up free in Israel.”

Pearl criticizes Holocaust museums, which he says do not include Israel in their narrative: “You see death and suffering, you don’t see Jewish revival. It’s a shame.”

Read More

12/24 Links Pt1: In 2025, anti-Semitism went apocalyptic; Anthony Albanese blasted for lacking ‘transparency, courage and honesty’ ; Bondi victims to be remembered on New Year’s Eve

From Ian:

Brendan O'Neill: In 2025, anti-Semitism went apocalyptic

Incredibly, it could have been even worse. This week, to round off an awful year for anti-Semitism, two radical Islamists in the UK were found guilty of planning the mass murder of Jews in Manchester. They arranged for guns to be smuggled into Britain so that they might cause ‘untold harm’ to the Jewish community. They were driven by a ‘visceral dislike’ of Jews and ‘very firm opinions’ on Gaza – anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism logically crashing together in an orgy of violent Jewphobia. Surely no one can continue to deny that Islamist anti-Semitism poses a grave threat to the modern West. We await the left’s clear condemnation of this medieval plot to massacre Jews. Meanwhile, in November it was announced that Mossad had foiled Hamas plots to massacre Jews across Europe. And still the half-wits of the faux-virtuous activist class see Mossad as the source of every earthly evil and Hamas as ‘resistance’. Shorter version: Killing Jews – fine. Saving them – how dare you.

How has this happened? How were gunmen and knifemen and mobs in the West allowed to heed that deathly instruction issued by Hamas on 7 October – namely, kill Jews? A key ingredient was the wilful blindness of the West. Jews and their friends warned over and over that things were spinning out of control. Alex Kleytman himself raised the alarm, in 2020, about ‘desecrated cemeteries [and] painted swastikas on the walls of synagogues’. Such barbarous racism reminded him of the dark past he survived. And yet Jews like him were ignored. They were accused of hyperbole, of ‘weaponising’ their feelings for cynical ends. Now he is dead while the vile minimisers of anit-Semtiism thrive.

Jews are once again bearing the brunt of the West’s abandonment of its civilisational values. Just as they were the prime victims of the Nazis’ ruthless destruction of European civilisation, so they are now the collateral damage of the modern West’s craven cowardice in the face of the Islamo-left threat. The elites’ fashionable loathing for the Jewish State has crashed together with the Islamist hatred for the Jewish people, giving rise to a moment of true danger for the Jewish people.

2025 has made it clear – we have failed our Jewish brothers and sisters. Europe’s porous borders allowed anti-Semites from regressive cultures to arrive on our shores. The cultural establishment’s frothing obsession with the ‘evil’ Jewish State reanimated the latent anti-Semitism of the bourgeoisie. The media’s ceaseless defamation of Israel, the damning of it as a genocidal entity that relishes in the murder of children, resuscitated blood libels of old. And the left’s flagrant ignoring of Jewish pleas for protection sealed the deal. ‘Don’t listen to them’, they essentially said. ‘They’re exaggerating.’ Even after Bondi, even following a massacre of Jews the Nazis would have gushed over, they’re saying this.

The West’s infrastructure of censorship played a central role in this callous damning of the Jews to their presumed fate. The elites’ ruthless shutdown of discussion about the borders problem, the rise of Islamism and the true nature of Israelophobia allowed regressive thinking and bigoted animus to fester and spread. It is always in the dark corners created by the cowardly creed of censorship that foul ideologies take root.

That ends right now. From Cable Street to the liberation of Auschwitz, goodness has frequently reasserted itself against the pox of Jew hatred and the contempt for human civilisation it always embodies. In 2026, we can do that again. Our best weapons? Liberty, truth and courage. And maybe some street-fighting where necessary.

Bondi victims to be remembered on New Year’s Eve

Sydney will pause to remember the victims of the Bondi terror attack on New Year's Eve with a one-minute silence, while the Harbour Bridge pylons will be illuminated in white light.

The world-famous fireworks on Sydney Harbour will feel different to previous years following Australia’s deadliest terror attack on Bondi Beach.

On December 14, a mass shooting resulted in the murder of 15 innocent people.

The Harbour Bridge pylons will be illuminated just before the 9pm fireworks, then an image of a dove and the word ‘peace’ will be lit up.

At 11pm, the landmark will be cast in white light before a one-minute silence.

Sydneysiders will be encouraged to switch on their phone torches and shine a light in solidarity.

Sydney Mayor Clover Moore said this year’s NYE display will display Sydney’s strength to come together as one.

“While we are still reeling from the recent tragic events in Bondi, New Year’s Eve provides an opportunity to gather as a community, to pause and reflect, and to look with hope for a safer and more peaceful 2026,” Ms Moore said.

“Sydney New Year’s Eve is more than fireworks. It’s a reflection of who we are – a vibrant, diverse and inclusive city. Those values are more important than ever.

“These moments will provide an opportunity for people to show respect, to reflect on the atrocity and to say we will not let this hateful act of terror divide us.”

‘She ran back into danger’: Chief Rabbi hails teenage girl courage during Bondi attack

The Chief Rabbi has hailed the bravery of a 14-year-old girl who was shot while shielding two children during the Bondi Beach attacks.

Speaking to Jewish News after returning to the UK from a solidarity visit to Sydney, Sir Ephraim Mirvis said the teenager’s actions came to symbolise the wider response of Australia’s Jewish community – one marked not by anger or retreat, but by faith, dignity and moral resolve.

“She had reached a position of safety,” he said. “But when she saw others injured and vulnerable, she ran back towards danger. People shouted for her to come back, but she felt compelled to help.”

Sir Ephraim visited the girl, Chaya Dadon, in hospital shortly before leaving Australia. He said she saw a mother who had been injured and two children lying exposed on the ground and threw herself over them to protect them. She was shot while shielding the children and later underwent surgery.

“Thank God she will survive,” he said. “She spoke with faith and belief, and with a deep determination to redouble her efforts to serve God and to make this a better world.”

For the Chief Rabbi, the teenager now embodies the message he is carrying back from Bondi Beach.

“If there is one person who captures what I saw in Australia, it is her,” he said.

Sir Ephraim also paid tribute to Ahmed al-Ahmed, who intervened during the attack and was seriously injured. Although the Chief Rabbi was unable to meet him due to further surgery, he said he had hoped to thank him in person.

“On behalf of the entire Jewish world, we cannot thank him enough,” he said. “He is a role model for all our societies.”

Read More

12/23 Links Pt2: How the ICC Invented a Non-Existent State to Persecute Israel; When the Blood Libel Came to America; UN yearly spends $100 million target Israel

From Ian:

On October 7, Approximately 46% of those reached were killed, kidnapped, or injured.

Public discussion of October 7 almost always begins with an immediate and rehearsed response: “But Gaza.” The implication is that comparing it settles moral and analytical questions — that a higher death toll retroactively shrinks the meaning of what came before it. It is a comparison that quietly neutralizes the event before it is examined: “1,200 Israelis killed versus tens of thousands of Palestinians dead in Gaza.” Framed this way, the attack is made to appear numerically small, even marginal, especially when set against the war that followed.

The number sounds small only when the denominator is inflated to include millions of people who were never attacked. It sounds small only when a one-day mass assault is compared to casualties accumulated over months of war, stripped of context, intent, and time scale. And it sounds small only when the participation of multiple armed groups and civilians who crossed the border to loot, burn, abduct, and kill is quietly erased.

But Palestinian terror groups did not attack Israel as an abstract whole. They invaded Israel, were eventually stopped, and were only able to attack the places they physically reached. Any serious attempt to understand the scale of October 7 has to measure it against the population that was actually exposed to the violence — not against an entire country that was never breached.

October 7 was not limited by restraint. It was limited by geography — by fences, distance, and time. Where attackers succeeded in entering civilian spaces, the result was devastating and systematic.

In one morning, Hamas and accompanying other Palestinian terror groups and civilian attackers:

Killed or abducted roughly 1 in 10 of the people they physically reached

And when the injured are included, destroyed the lives of nearly half of everyone they reached — through killing, kidnapping, or injury.

In some communities, such as Nir Oz, the impact was far more extreme, with close to one in four residents killed or taken hostage, before the injured are even counted.

This was not collateral damage.
This was not urban warfare.
It was population-level annihilation wherever access existed, limited only by geography and time.

When the Blood Libel Came to America

In recent weeks, notable figures on the right have tried to either mainstream anti-Semitism or look away. Many conservatives and Christians find themselves put to the test, no longer able to ignore the problem metastasizing before them. Nearly a century ago, in a small upstate New York factory town, Americans faced a similar test—and passed. That story is worth revisiting today.

On Saturday, September 22, 1928, four-year-old Barbara Griffiths disappeared in Massena, New York, a rural factory town along the St. Lawrence River, which divides America and Canada. Frantic search parties of police, firefighters, and townspeople scoured the woods, fields, and streets, peering through storefront windows looking for Barbara.

As day gave way to night, fear gave way to speculation and scapegoating when one Massena resident told law enforcement that Jews were rumored to kidnap and ritually sacrifice children in the region that the resident had immigrated from. The blood libel, an ancient pagan and Christian pretext for violence against Jews, had come to America.

The blood libel, the charge that Jews kidnap, kill, and eat non-Jews, was first documented in the first century. The charge of ritual cannibalism was also made against early Christians. The blood libel resurfaced in the Middle Ages and has since been used as a pretext for Jewish persecution. The week Barbara disappeared, a New York Times headline noted “Anti-Jewish Agitation” in Europe over “Ritual Murder Rumors.”

Jonathan Sacerdoti: Iran’s has a ceaseless obsession with Israel

Iran’s conduct strips away any illusion about priorities. Even amid water shortages, electricity failures and economic contraction, the regime has channelled vast resources into instruments of attack. Mohammad Javad Zarif’s recent acknowledgement on Al Jazeera that roughly $500 billion was spent on the nuclear programme was striking precisely because it carried no regret. The expenditure was framed as ideological defiance. The moral judgement, drawn by others, contrasts that figure with empty reservoirs and decaying infrastructure. The choice was deliberate.

In Tehran’s Palestine Square, a digital clock counts down to the envisioned destruction of the State of Israel. The symbol is grotesque, yet clarifying. While Israel has invested relentlessly in shelters, early warning systems and civilian resilience, Iran has provided its population with little protection from the wars it seeks. Iranian friends of mine abroad speak quietly of families without shelters, without warning systems, without any sense of personal safety.

Israel harbours no reciprocal obsession. During the war, it possessed the capacity to push further, to pursue regime change directly. It chose restraint. Its focus remains survival and protection rather than ideological conquest. Even under fire, its economy functioned. Its society absorbed shock without collapse. That resilience frustrates Tehran, which speaks openly of breaking morale and dismantling prosperity. The effort has failed, so far.

The wider world should observe this regime with the same clarity Israel is forced to apply. Iran’s leadership is so consumed by the project of destroying Israel that it accepts, even embraces, the sacrifice of its own people as collateral. Chronic water shortages, failing infrastructure, economic exhaustion and the absence of basic civilian protection are not unintended consequences but tolerated costs. The clock in Palestine Square, counting down to 2040, makes this plain. It is not a threat of imminence but a declaration of endurance, a statement that the campaign is generational rather than tactical.

That obsession does not stop at Israel’s borders. Across Europe, including in the United Kingdom, Iranian regime institutions, networks and operatives continue to function openly or semi-openly, engaged in intimidation, subversion and preparation. From European capitals to Latin America, including Venezuela, the Islamic Republic has built a lattice of influence dedicated to disruption, coercion and violence abroad. Israel stands on the front line of this project, but it is not its final destination.

The clock continues to tick. One can only hope that the regime which built its future around such a promise is gone long before it reaches zero.

Read More

12/23 Links Pt1: Deport the Hate Preachers. Now.; Trio convicted in UK for terror plot to kill hundreds of Jews; The warrior Jews who terrified Rome

From Ian:

Tony Abbott: Deport the Hate Preachers. Now.

For years, the leftist mindset has seen Jews as possessors of “white privilege” and Israel as an exemplar of “settler colonialism” and therefore as “oppressors” – hence the absurdity of “Queers for Palestine” and the insistence, even from ministers in the Albanese government, that October 7 should be seen “in context”.

What else can explain the government’s increasingly harsh denunciations of Israel, its alacrity in issuing visas to largely unvetted people from Gaza, its secret repatriation of “ISIS brides”, and its recognition of Palestine in a massive concession to the “river to the sea” protesters?

The basic problem with the Albanese government is the leftist instincts that constantly distort its moral lens.

Hence the government’s inability to have an envoy against anti-Semitism without also appointing one against an almost non-existent Islamophobia; the PM’s apparent greater comfort in Beijing than in Washington; and the government’s inability to open its mouth without acknowledging “country”, or the neurotic flying of three flags as some kind of atonement for the original settlement of Australia.

Maybe the Bondi massacre will turn out to have been a “road to Damascus” moment, with Anthony Albanese and his ministers henceforth ruthless and relentless in monitoring hate preachers and closing them down if they utter so much as a word from the Koran urging the killing of Jews; in comprehensively vetting visa applicants to ensure that their beliefs and their social media history really are consistent with the democratic instincts Australians should be able to rely on; and in forever putting behind them any ambivalence about our country and its symbols, such as the flag, Australia Day and Anzac Day.

Never again, let’s hope, will we get from this government vacuous slogans about “our diversity is our strength”, as if there’s something embarrassing about our Anglo-Celtic core culture and our fundamental Judaeo-Christian ethos.

Yet the PM’s inability to apologise for the government’s failures, and inability to say definitely Islamist hate slogans will be as banned as nazi salutes, does not augur well.

Australia’s immigration program need not discriminate on the basis of race or religion, but it should discriminate on the basis of values if we are to last as a free and fair society.

As the citizenship pledge goes, all of us must be absolutely committed “to Australia and its people, whose democratic beliefs I share, whose rights and liberties I respect, and whose laws I will uphold and obey”.

It’s a modern version of Ruth’s biblical declaration that “your people will be my people and your God my God”. People who can’t say it, mean it, and live it, should not be here.

Did the Iranian Regime Play a Role in Australia's Hanukkah Massacre?

Hours before the Bondi Beach attack, Ahmad Ghadiri Abyaneh - the son of Mohammad-Hassan Ghadiri Abyaneh, a former Iranian ambassador to Australia - posted a cryptic message on X condemning Jewish Hanukkah celebrations as a "satanic ritual."

His post framed Jewish religious observance as a threat requiring "societal defense," citing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's doctrine of "mobilized civil resistance" against perceived enemies of Islam.

This echoed the Iranian regime's systematic use of religious language to legitimize violence against Jewish and Western targets.

The cumulative evidence surrounding the Bondi Beach massacre strongly suggests a conducive environment shaped by Iranian ideology.

The attack should be understood as part of a global campaign of intimidation linked to state-sponsored extremist doctrine.

Read More

12/22 Links Pt2: Lion-Eater of Judah; Inventing a Nonexistent Famine Should Be a Credibility Killer; Cheers for Ben Shapiro; Vance’s Friends Without Benefits; The Problem Is Mamdani

From Ian:

Lion-Eater of Judah

“Never since the days of Judas Maccabaeus had such sights and sounds been seen and heard in a military camp,” wrote Colonel John Patterson in his 1916 memoir With the Zionists in Gallipoli. If Judas had visited this “great camp with the tents of the Children of Israel,” Patterson went on:
He would have heard the Hebrew tongue spoken on all sides, and seen a host of Sons of Judah drilling to the same words of command he used to those gallant soldiers who fought the Romans: he would have heard the plaintive soul-stirring music of the Maccabean hymn chanted by the men as they marched through the camps. Although it was only a mule corps, yet it was (potentially) a fighting unit and of this the men were all very proud.

As Natan Slifkin recounts in his recently published The Lions of Zion, the Irish-born British soldier was, like the Maccabees he so admired, a fighter of both animals and men. More importantly, as commander of the Zion Mule Corps in World War I and later the 38th battalion of the Royal Fusiliers, which came to be known as the Jewish Legion, he, like those hearty Hasmoneans, helped revive the Jewish national project.

Patterson’s early-career adventures earned him not one but four Hollywood adaptations. In 1898, he killed two man-eating lions that had been chomping their way through a railway construction project in British East Africa. As he would recall years later:
I have never experienced anything more nerve-shaking than to hear the deep roars of these dreadful monsters growing nearer and nearer, and to know that some one or other of us was doomed to be their victim before morning dawned. . . . Shouts would then pass from camp to camp “Beware, brothers, the devil is coming,” but the warning cries would prove of no avail; and sooner or later agonizing shrieks would break the silence, and another man would be missing from roll call next morning.

Hollywood couldn’t resist. Bwana Devil, a 1952 United Artists production, was the first color film made in 3D. Four decades later, in the late 90’s, there was the Man-eaters of Tsavo, a documentary based on Patterson’s memoir by the same name. In a fictionalized version released around the same time, Val Kilmer played the adventurer in Paramount’s Ghost and the Darkness. More recently, the Yellowstone prequel series 1923 featured a character, Spencer Dutton, inspired by the courageous colonel.

Seth Mandel: Inventing a Nonexistent Famine Should Be a Credibility Killer

It’s obviously great news that there was no famine in Gaza. It is terrible news that the organizations responsible for informing the world of such conditions knew the whole time that there was no famine and manipulated data in order to spread false accusations against Israel. The “famine” narrative materially affected the war by convincing supposed members of the democratic alliance to withhold supplies from Israel and force Israel to resupply Hamas, thereby prolonging the war and costing additional Israeli and Palestinian lives. The wider “child killer” narrative, meanwhile, has been part of a global campaign of ever-escalating violence against Jews around the world.

If the objectively false “Israel is deliberately starving babies” narrative never takes hold, the war ends sooner and the Global Intifada is starved of some of its oxygen. It’s a no-brainer, then, that anyone who contributed to the spread of that narrative should be considered outside the bounds of respectable opinion. They can be free to post deranged material to social media just like anybody else, but they should be given no legitimacy by governments and academics and the media.

That last one might be too much to hope for, of course. The Associated Press “report” on the IPC’s acknowledgement of improved conditions in Gaza begins this way: “The spread of famine has been averted in the Gaza Strip, but the situation remains critical with the entire Palestinian territory still facing starvation, the world’s leading authority on food crises said Friday.”

Let’s just be clear: “famine has been averted” is thankfully true of most places in the world today. And if famine was averted, why the passive phrasing? Doesn’t that mean someone was getting food to Gazans even while their own government was hoarding it from them? And wouldn’t that someone be… the State of Israel?

Yes, it would. So here’s what happened: Hamas tried to bring a famine upon the people of Gaza, and Israel (at great risk) made sure to deliver enough food and supplies to stop that from happening even while Gaza’s armed forces remained at war with Israel. In their disappointment that there was no famine, Hamas’s allies in the NGO world pretended there was famine anyway, so that they could also lie about Israel’s efforts to supply Gaza. And a major global news wire rewarded them by telling readers they are the “world’s leading authority on food crises” despite the fact that the lesson of the article is that the IPC cannot be trusted.

The very least politicians can do is ensure that untrustworthy sources have no role in policymaking ever again.

National Review Editorial: Cheers for Ben Shapiro

Well, that will leave a mark.

Ben Shapiro did the conservative movement a service last week by giving two speeches that were deliberate acts of provocation.

First, at the Heritage Foundation, he argued that a political movement, like a nation, needs borders. He illustrated the point with reference to the Heritage Foundation mission statement, which supports free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense.

He then compared those principles with the beliefs of Tucker Carlson, with whom Heritage President Kevin Roberts has been in ideological sympathy, up to and including initially defending Carlson’s interview with Nick Fuentes (before backpedaling). Shapiro persuasively argued that by Heritage’s own standards Carlson — who expresses routine contempt for markets, who launders Russian propaganda, who sees the advantages of sharia law, and who gives sympathetic interviews to white nationalists, Churchill-hating World War II revisionists, and proud misogynists accused of rape — is no longer a conservative.

We assume that Roberts won’t be inviting Shapiro back any time soon, but his talk was received warmly by the audience at the Heritage Foundation.

A couple of days later, Shapiro spoke at TPUSA’s AmFest conference. He addressed the rank pandering to audience, widespread conspiracy-theorizing, and cowardly unwillingness to call out lunacy on the right that has infected the right-wing influencer space. Here, Shapiro focused on the absolutely cracked theories promoted by Candace Owens about the Charlie Kirk assassination; these rancid, obsessive musings, which would set off alarms bells for any psychiatrist if spouted by a patient, have significantly shaped the debate on the right about Kirk’s assassination.

Daniel B. Shapiro: Democrats Sound Like They’re in Doha

The end of the U.S.-Israel security partnership would have three immediate effects. First, it would make Israel appear vulnerable, leading Iran and its allies to accelerate their efforts, already under way, to rearm and prepare for another, perhaps decisive, war. Far from advancing the cause of peace, such a move would likely intensify the region’s conflicts.

Second, it would undermine bipartisan efforts to build an integrated coalition of U.S. partners—Israel and moderate Arab states—that assist one another and allow the United States to play a supporting, but not always leading, role in maintaining regional stability. Arab states are deepening their relationship with Israel in large part because they believe that it will bring them closer to the United States. When we are seen as a less reliable partner for our closest regional ally, they will draw obvious conclusions. Cutting off Israel would thus lead to a less stable, more conflict-ridden region. And it would actually set back Palestinian aspirations by undermining the Saudi-Israeli normalization deal that might advance them.

Third, the end of security assistance to Israel would soon mean the same for Jordan and Egypt, whose assistance programs derive from their peace treaties with Israel. Jordan’s stability could be placed at immediate risk, with spillover dangers in Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and the West Bank. Egypt would not stop arming itself; it would simply buy weapons from Russia and China. Gulf states, boxed out from purchasing U.S. equipment by ongoing U.S. legal requirements to sustain Israel’s qualitative military edge, would do the same. There is no better or faster way to open the door to our competitors’ planting their flag in a strategic and volatile region than by cutting off Israel.

The net result of these trends will be a dramatic decline in U.S. influence in the Middle East. For those embracing the impulse to look inward, that may seem fine. Early in the cycle of isolationism, as in the 1930s or after the Cold War, it always does. But eventually, a shock or crisis—World War II, 9/11, or one that we can’t yet name but that will surely come—will draw us back into the region, but under far worse conditions and at a much higher cost.

Sustaining a functional relationship with Israel, with all of its flaws, is manifestly more beneficial to U.S. interests than the alternative. And we need to keep perspective. Netanyahu will not govern forever. The Israeli public has moved rightward, but there are reasonable leaders from the center right and the center left to cultivate. A Palestinian state will not be on the agenda in the Israeli election campaign of 2026, but as the war recedes, there will be various ways to engage the Israeli public—an imperative that Israel’s critics utterly ignore but that is crucial for obtaining the outcomes we want in a democracy—to incentivize them to vote in a more moderate direction. Bidding them good riddance and telling them that they are on their own would do the opposite. Ignoring the responsibility of other actors—such as Palestinian Authority leaders who must embrace reform and demonstrate the capacity to govern and defeat extremists—would do the same.

If Israel wants to see Democrats pursue engagement, then it must help. Expressing conceptual openness to Palestinian statehood as part of a regionally integrated framework—even if it takes longer than Palestinians might hope and assumes a form that looks different from previous efforts—will be important. Keeping extremists out of the Israeli government, and cracking down on extremist violence, is crucial. And recognizing that legitimate security operations must include maximum efforts to protect civilians is essential. Although Israel Defense Forces commanders were always clear that their intent was to target Hamas, not civilians, their tolerance of civilian casualties in pursuit of legitimate military targets was far too high. An intense military-to-military dialogue could help persuade them to adjust that calculation. As in any war, specific charges that soldiers committed war crimes must be investigated and adjudicated in a credible military-justice system—something the United States military has done, albeit imperfectly.

Democrats, and all Americans, face a choice in upcoming elections. We can make the moral, political, and strategic error of trying to wash our hands of a relationship with a democratic partner under stress that has made many mistakes as it has fought to defend itself. Or we can commit to working with that partner and its current, flawed leadership while we wait for new leaders to emerge. We can choose to sustain crucial aspects of a relationship that serves our moral and strategic interests, while insisting on changes that conform with U.S. values. The latter course is clearly the better choice.

Read More

12/22 Links Pt1: The Maccabees of Bondi Beach; Hating Zionists, killing Jews; Conditional Condolences; Hamas Front Group Runs Wikipedia Editing Course

From Ian:

Dave Rich: Hating Zionists, killing Jews

If this is how things work, then we are entitled to ask: what was the demonising, stereotyping and stigmatising, the increasing hostility and outpourings of hatred, that led terrorists in Australia, Britain and the United States to not only murder Jews, but to all justify it by reference to “Zionists” and child killers?

It’s impossible to separate this from the tidal wave of hatred directed towards “Zionists” from the anti-Israel movement on our streets and online. The cries of “Death to all Zionists”, the calls for Zionists to be driven from our campuses, and the chants of “Zionist scum, off our streets”. The claims that “Zionists” control the UK government and are genocidal baby killers. The comparisons of Zionism to Nazism. The repeated slogans of “Death to the IDF”, “Intifada” and “Resistance”. All of this hatred and dehumanisation, combined with calls for radical action, reached a pitch long ago where terrorism against Jews became entirely predictable.

When people point this out, they are accused of weaponising antisemitism (a particularly revolting phrase, given how often antisemites now use weapons to kill Jews); or distracting people to enable the slaughter of Palestinians; or being part of a coordinated PR campaign to protect Israel; or - most ridiculously - that nobody ever chants “globalise the Intifada” anyway. Ironically, this often comes from the same people who are quickest to point the finger at wider right wing rhetoric when trying to explain far right violence. It’s gaslighting, plain and simple.

Nor does it matter that this incitement is directed at “Zionists”, because we see now - if we ever doubted it - that hatred of Zionists lands on Jews. This operates on a spectrum, from the most murderous to the most fleeting. Last night I went to my local menorah lighting for the eighth night of Chanukah. It was dark and rainy, but a bigger crowd than usual, a sign of solidarity and togetherness after the awfulness of Bondi. The Chabad rabbi tried to inject some joy, as they always do. And a middle-aged woman, walking past, repeatedly shouted “Free Palestine” at the crowd, looking pleased with herself as she did so. I don’t think she is a potential killer. But in her sentiment, her irrepressible urge to harass Jews celebrating Chanukah, she was expressing the same underlying hatred as the Akrams, just in less violent form.

In theory, it should be possible to have a non-extremist movement that campaigns for Palestinian rights. In reality, though, the anti-Israel movement we actually have has provided a welcoming environment for extremists and antisemites. It wouldn’t be the first time that a legitimate cause had been distorted in this way: the far right do the same, hijacking legitimate concerns about immigration to incite hatred of foreigners. A similar thing has clearly happened here too: the Palestinian cause has been co-opted by extremists who use its language and slogans to incite, and act out, hatred of Jews.

It is true that even extremists have a right to protest, but the presence of hateful, violent rhetoric on anti-Israel marches is too visible to deny, and now that this same language is being used to justify the killing of Jews, the consequences are too lethal to ignore. In an ideal world the protest organisers would be proactively trying to help, but that seems unlikely. Instead, it must mean that these demonstrations are policed differently, and it is good to see that this is starting to happen. It should also trouble the MPs, trade unions and NGOs that back the marches or speak at them, that they are associated with this hatred. One way or another, things have to change. Bondi, Manchester, Boulder and Washington D.C.: the most dangerous form of anti-Jewish terrorism today looks, and sounds, like violent anti-Zionism.

Sami Shah: Conditional Condolences

When Christchurch happened in 2019, when Muslims were slaughtered in a mosque, I don’t remember the Left going, “Our hearts go out and we condemn Islamophobia, and also we condemn antisemitism, transphobia, and anti-black racism.” I don’t remember the Instagram posts being like:

“Point 1: It is evil to massacre civilians for being Muslim.
Point 2: Obviously Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, Syria’s atrocities against its own civilians, and Pakistan’s persecution of Ahmadis must continue to be opposed.”

No one did that. Because it would have been psychotic.

Because everyone instinctively understood: this is a moment for the victims. This is a moment to name the people targeted. This is a moment to say “Muslims,” out loud, without flinching like it’s a swear word.

But when it’s Jews? Suddenly it’s “Yes, tragic… anyway, here is my Gaza position.”

Why?

Why does Jewish grief come with terms and conditions?

Why is “All Lives Matter” cringe when it’s used to dilute Black suffering… but completely acceptable when it’s used to dilute Jewish suffering?

Because that’s what this is. “We condemn antisemitism and also anti-Palestinian racism and Islamophobia and everything else…” It’s the grief version of someone hijacking a birthday speech to announce they’ve started a podcast.

And I saw so many posts—from people who proudly describe themselves as leftists and progressives—reacting to Bondi without even saying the word “Jew.” They said “community.” They said “innocent people.” They said “tragedy.” They said everything except the thing that was actually targeted. Like the victims were killed by a vague weather event; a cloud of bullets drifting in on a sea breeze.

It’s like they were afraid that if they said “Jewish” their phone would vibrate and a committee would appear behind them like, “Just checking: do you also condemn Israel?”

And this is what really makes me feral: this attack was against Jews. A Jewish festival. A Jewish community event. The whole point of terrorism is targeting identity—to make the identity feel unsafe anywhere. And some people’s first instinct is: “Yes, but…”

But what?

But Gaza?

But Israel?

But Netanyahu?

But Zionism?

No.

Stop it.

You can oppose Israeli policy. You can call out Israeli war crimes. You can scream about Gaza until your throat falls out. But if you cannot mourn murdered Jews in Australia without immediately pivoting to Israel, then you are not doing solidarity. You are doing a performance. And the people you’re stepping on to reach the stage are dead.

The Maccabees of Bondi Beach

On the first night of Hanukkah, the Jewish community was thrust into another nightmare, when at least 15 people were killed and more than 40 wounded in a mass shooting by a father-son duo at a Chabad event in Bondi Beach. Those killed in the attack included a 10-year-old named Matilda Bee Britvan, whose family moved to Australia to escape the war in Ukraine, and Alex Kleytman, a Holocaust survivor killed while trying to shield his wife. Australian authorities later confirmed that the gathering had been deliberately targeted and meticulously planned, marking one of the deadliest antisemitic attacks in the country’s history.

In the hours and days that followed, one story quickly rose above the rest. Footage circulating online showed a heroic bystander, later identified as Ahmed al-Ahmed, rushing toward one of the attackers and wrestling a gun out of the terrorist’s hands.

As the footage spread rapidly across social media and news broadcasts, it soon came to dominate the public conversation, increasingly framing the attack as a story of Muslim-Jewish reconciliation rather than an act of antisemitic violence, with Ahmed al-Ahmed becoming the central figure through which the massacre was understood. This reframing allows Australia to look away from its deeper failures that made the attack possible. It also obscures another critical fact: that there were many Jews at the event who also behaved with unbelievable heroism and bravery, whose names have been largely absent from the narrative.

Read More

12/21 Links: Arsen Ostrovsky: My Family Survived Bondi Beach; The Real War Is Islamism's Infiltration of Western Democracies; Tucker Carlson named ‘Antisemite of the Year’

From Ian:

Arsen Ostrovsky: My Family Survived Bondi Beach

Three weeks after my family had relocated from Israel to Australia, we were in the crossfire on Bondi Beach. One of the gunmen's bullets hit my head. I fell to the ground and bled profusely. To my right, an elderly man crouched, covering his wife. He was also hit, not moving. To my left, a few feet away, I saw body parts strewn on the ground. Another man ripped off his shirt and lent it to me to help stop the blood gushing from my head. My wife had managed to escape unharmed and found refuge with our children. Doctors later told me it was millimeters between life and death, "a miracle" I survived.

Over the past two years, the Jewish community has warned time and again that when hatred is allowed to fester, when it is excused, normalized or mainstreamed, it inevitably leads to violence. Australia doesn't need another inquiry, strategy document or press release expressing sorrow. We need urgent, decisive action. Our laws must be enforced. Incitement must have consequences. Intelligence must be acted on and radical Islamic extremism must be confronted, not managed.

Bondi Was Not a Surprise

I am angry at the government for ignoring antisemitic violence and intimidation, at the media for whitewashing it, at the academics who provided it with intellectual legitimacy, and at everyone who marched and chanted and who justified or minimized antisemitism in Australia because of their feelings about a conflict on the other side of the globe.

I am angry at every official who failed to do their due diligence: in neglecting to vet immigrants from countries where vicious antisemitism is endemic; in allowing a man whose son was suspected of involvement with ISIS to legally own multiple firearms; in never taking a clear stand against Jew-hatred in this country. I am angry at the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, who has blamed the tragedy primarily on firearms and who seems unable to name the cause clearly. I can name it: the poisonous hatred of Jews.

I believe that a silent majority of Aussies are heartily sick of the attacks on our harmony, our culture, and our Jews. At Quillette, we stand with Jews in Australia, in Israel, and throughout the world. RIP: Boris Tetleroyd, Boris Gurman, Sofia Gurman, Reuven Morrison, Edith Brutman, Marika Pogany, Dan Elkayam, Eli Schlanger, Yaakov Levitan, Peter Meagher, Alex Kleytman, Tibor Weitzen, Adam Smyth, Tania Tretiak, and ten-year-old Matilda. May their memories be a blessing.

Jonathan Conricus: The Real War Is Islamism's Infiltration of Western Democracies

The global civilizational conflict between the Free World and the forces of Islamism - a movement that seeks not coexistence, but domination - has only begun. Islamism's most violent expression erupts in the bloodlust of Hamas, ISIS, or al-Qaeda. Yet its more patient, insidious face belongs to the Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliates - groups that have mastered the art of slow infiltration, cultural manipulation, and institutional takeover. Their ambition is the same: the imposition of Sharia and the submission of free societies.

I was raised in Malmo, Sweden, where I watched firsthand the quiet surrender of a liberal Western city to Islamist intimidation. Today, similar scenes unfold in London, Paris, Toronto, Sydney, and New York, where since Oct. 7, 2023, Islamists have marched openly through Western capitals, waving the flags of terror movements and calling for "global intifada."

The response from many Western governments has been paralysis: fear of being called "Islamophobic" outweighs the courage to name the threat. Listen carefully to what Islamists say in their own rallies and mosques. They boast of taking over Western institutions. They preach that democracy is a tool to be exploited until the day it can be replaced. They view liberal tolerance not as a virtue but as a weakness to be exploited.

The same ideology that sent Hamas terrorists across Israel's border on Oct. 7 now works methodically to seize student unions, civil-society groups, and local councils across Europe and North America. In Britain, dozens of municipalities are now governed by officials who declare loyalty not to the United Kingdom but to the global Islamic nation. In the process, this ideology has fueled a resurgence of antisemitism and social fragmentation in the West.

This war is not over. It will only end when Islamism - violent and non-violent alike - is defeated intellectually, financially, and politically. Education must be our front line. That begins with dismantling UNRWA, whose curriculum perpetuates hate and martyrdom in Gaza's classrooms. A generation taught that killing Jews is holy cannot build peace.

Governments should outlaw Islamist organizations where evidence ties them to terror networks. The Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliates should be designated terrorist entities. Qatar and Turkey - state sponsors of this ideology - must face consequences, not indulgence. Political correctness is a luxury we can no longer afford. This war will decide the fate of the entire Free World.

Read More