03/19 Links Pt2: USAID investigating U.N. staff for Hamas ties; The Many Faces of Tucker Carlson; Rama's Politically Correct Nazism; Despite War, Israel Ranks 8th in Global Happiness Survey

From Ian:

Ersatz Israel

Antisemitism isn’t antipathy toward individual Jews. Rather, it is and has always been a structure of discourse pitched against Israel as a whole. It isn’t a question of hatred, or self-hatred, but an abortive attempt to restore moral coherence in a situation of mental and political breakdown.

Israel is designated as a conspiratorial agency driving this crisis and the individual failures extending from it. But the formula inverts reality. Despite persistent misconceptions on this point, Israel designates the conservative pole in the Western synthesis. Christianity, and the “lost sheep of Israel” (such as myself), represents the revolutionary, universal pole. Drawing from that well, John Lennon’s utopian anthem “Imagine” dreams of abolishing religion and nations to establish a borderless brotherhood of perpetual peace. In the decades since Lennon was shot, the West has pursued this fantasy to the point of auto-destruction. Meanwhile, Israel has moved in the opposite direction, reaffirming its sovereignty in the teeth of existential hostility.

Israel’s defiance of both Leninism and Lennonism has made it the major enemy of the left, which, under Soviet tutelage, expanded the concept of Zionism into a globalized metaphysical entity. A few months ago, I asked a curator at an art space in New York what he considers to be the principal challenges facing contemporary culture. His answer was “capitalism, fascism, and Zionism.” What these have in common is a refusal to recognize universal leftist moral authority—extending from the initial Jewish refusal to accept Christianity—translated into secular terms.

Meanwhile, the New Right looks at Israel with a mixture of suspicion and envy, caught between a desire for the United States to be more like Israel and the unhappy hypothesis that Israel itself (sometimes expressed as “the Jews” or “powerful Jews” or “Jewish power”) prevents this from happening. The New Right’s ostensible dream is a return to a “realist” foreign policy governed by America’s national interest, which is often somewhat bizarrely framed as a withdrawal from global power arrangements that directly and significantly benefit the United States.

Defining America’s interests means defining what America is and its place in the world. This procedure cuts both ways: A nation committed to nothing but the cynical maximization of power will not survive long. Here again, the left is more consistent than the New Right—a political formation still struggling for identity—since the left accepts that the question has existential dimensions, and correctly identifies Israel with the West it rejects.

But the strength of its passion also indicates a desire and a demand. The critical theme, across the political spectrum, conceives Israel as “the force that oppresses us” from a perspective in which America is seen to be lacking in political agency, and citizens feel they lack agency over their own lives. Israel is said to have entrapped America, when the speaker is themselves trapped by an obsession with Israel.

This syndrome reveals a special irony in the light of the early modern mobilization of Israel as a model for national sovereignty. Machiavelli characterized Moses as a model political strategist. Judith and Holofernes became a favorite theme for Flemish painters in the war of secession of the Dutch Republic from Spain.

The Mayflower Pilgrims went even further and identified themselves as a living version of the people of Israel, who had undertaken a new exodus to the new Zion of America. It was this identification that inspired America’s “manifest destiny” and still holds it together, just as philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder, when looking for a way to define the Romantic idea of a “people” or a “nation,” used the biblical Israel to hold his concept together. Evangelical pastor Doug Wilson’s argument that “Deuteronomy is about America” makes total sense within this religio-historical context: What the book presents is a script for maintaining national political structures against internal dissension and external threats, through a system of rituals that serve critical social functions—above all, the generational transmission of values through the formation of families.

The political story of the Tanakh as a whole is the cyclical loss of observance, resulting in periodic calamity, followed by miraculous recovery. The West is now somewhere between these phases. Today, post-national European states are fanatically anti-Israel, their fertility is beneath replacement, and their destruction is accelerating through mass migration. The same trends are intensifying in America. These phenomena are not separate; they are linked.

What the West has rejected is Israel as the template for national politics. What has replaced Israel is “Palestine”: a corrupt, post-political NGO zone seething with violence and sliding inexorably toward Islam.

For all these reasons, the question of Israel goes well beyond geopolitics or questions of national interest, whether American or Israeli: It concerns the identity and the destiny of the West. As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu put it, “The State of Israel shows the world what a fighting people look like, and what a fighting nation looks like.” What is at stake in the war with Iran is not just security but also the possibility of a new synthesis between the West’s universalist and nationalist poles. It is no longer a question of universalist nation building, but a refusal to continue to tolerate an Islamist terror state that has waged war against the West for almost 50 years. If that effort fails, the stakes will only get higher.

Seth Mandel: America’s Political-Violence Problem and Its Anti-Semitism Crisis Are Colliding

The recent uptick in political assassination attempts does not discriminate by party nor has it been limited to Jewish figures. There was the nearly successful attempt on President Trump’s life at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, the attempt to burn down Gov. Josh Shapiro’s home with his family inside it, the execution of Minnesota statehouse speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, the assassination of Charlie Kirk.

Still, coming amid an explosion in anti-Semitic violence with part of a political movement calling for a “global Intifada,” and given Moskowitz’s Jewishness and outspokenness on anti-Semitism, there are a couple points to make.

The first is that it isn’t censorship to criticize the hate preachers becoming increasingly popular in the modern political landscape. The Tucker Carlsons and Hasan Pikers of America have done much to normalize and popularize dangerous rhetoric, and the politicians who embrace them are insulating them from the norms that might otherwise cause society to shun them, as any healthy society would.

As it happens, in today’s Wall Street Journal, Third Way officials Jonathan Cowan and Lily Cohen have an excellent piece hammering Democrats for their embrace of Piker and their unwillingness, more broadly, to do what Ted Cruz and Tom Cotton did recently: publicly excoriate their own party and political movement for its tolerance of anti-Semitism.

The seeds for Cowan and Cohen’s column were sown last week when Cohen posted a tweet with a similar message. Cohen named Piker, Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner, and New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani as prominent leftward figures staining the Democratic Party with anti-Semitism. In response, Ro Khanna, a popular progressive member of Congress and likely 2028 presidential candidate, dismissed Cohen on X: “I am proud to stand with @grahamformaine @ZohranKMamdani & join @hasanthehun feed,” he posted.

Khanna is a big part of the problem facing our politics today, and he is clearly just getting started. It is a mark of our current political crisis that Khanna is so proud of his role boosting anti-Semites as violence continues to rise.

And the second point is closely related: Moskowitz puts himself in danger for calling out anti-Semitism. Where are all the other Democrats? Shouldn’t they have his back? Anti-Semites and so-called anti-Zionists have been trying to assassinate the party’s prominent Jews. Major Democratic officeholders ought to be scrambling to make a public address about the violent Jew-hatred in their party and the politicians supporting it. It does not let Republicans off the hook just because of what Cruz and Cotton have done, but it does highlight just how isolated Democrats have let folks like Moskowitz become. That needs to end now.

Khaled Abu Toameh: US Direct Talks with Hamas: Legitimizing and Empowering Terrorists

Engagement clearly signals to terrorists that violence is an effective path to power, land, and international recognition. Hamas is a group that is explicitly and fundamentally committed, in both ideology and practice, to "armed resistance" (terrorism).

Hamas is not some misunderstood political faction waiting to be coaxed into moderation. It advocates jihad (holy war) as an "individual duty [of all Muslims] for the liberation of Palestine."

Article 13 of the Hamas charter says: "There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors."

[T]here is no evidence that the terror group intends to fundamentally alter its long-term goals.

Talking to Hamas now, without its first adhering to Trump's preconditions, marks a sharp and potentially confusing policy reversal that weakens US credibility globally.

Across the region, the Iranian regime and its terror proxies are watching closely. The lesson for them will unmistakably be: hold out, escalate, and eventually the world's most powerful democracy will come to deliver victory to you.

Engaging Hamas as if it were a normal governing authority will only demonstrate to other terrorist groups that terrorism works.

Launching direct talks with Hamas or other Islamist terror groups absent any fundamental change in their positions is not diplomacy. It is capitulation and surrender dressed up as "realism."

Above all, direct engagement of Hamas is a concession to the jihadis, who believe Muslims are in an eternal confrontation with the enemies of Islam and must overthrow secular regimes to restore a "pure" Islamic state.

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03/18 Links Pt1: ‘Get Him Before God Does’; Iran Strikes Qatar's refinery, Prompting Doha to Expel Iranian Diplomats; Iranian missile struck WB town, killing 3 Palestinian women

From Ian:

Jonathan S. Tobin: Stopping Tehran's Apocalyptic Goals Is Important

Two weeks after the start of the U.S.-Israeli offensive against Iran, naysayers about the wisdom of the operation remain pervasive and loud. Yet, Iran was steadily rebuilding its nuclear program with an imminent option to race to a bomb, expanding missile production, and continuing to orchestrate an "axis of resistance" dedicated to fomenting chaos and war.

That's more than enough to justify the risks that are an inevitable part of all wars. Even now it's obvious that continuing a policy of kicking the can down the road that Trump's predecessors chose would have been as colossal a mistake as even the costliest military blunder.

The first purpose of the campaign is the eradication of Iran's nuclear and ballistic-missile programs, in addition to its support and active participation in international terrorism. Washington and Jerusalem have also stated that they favor regime change in Iran. That's something Israel believes is absolutely necessary to achieve. The Trump administration would like it to happen, but could live without it, as long as the ayatollahs were stripped of their nukes and missiles, and had their terrorist option foreclosed.

While the success of the U.S.-Israeli offensive won't be able to be fully evaluated until after the conflict is over, it's clear that both militaries have systematically eliminated Iran's military capabilities, hunted down its missile-launchers, and done more damage to its nuclear program.

The fact that a country as large as Iran is not completely defeated in two weeks is not a reason to believe the war has so far been a failure. If the armed forces of the two allies are allowed to continue their military efforts, the already devastating results for Iran will likely become even more impressive. There is no reason to believe that the war is already a "quagmire."

The arguments that say the U.S. would have been better off delaying action or even appeasing Iran ring false. The policy of enriching and empowering Tehran that was the consequence of the 2015 nuclear deal led to a stronger and more aggressive Islamist regime. Letting Iran get a nuclear weapon became an increasingly likely scenario in the last year and would have done far more damage to U.S. interests than even a permanent hike in gas prices.

Letting a tyrannical regime ruled by religious fanatics bent on imposing their version of fanatical Islam on the Middle East and the rest of the world get a nuclear weapon would be a nightmare. And that would have been the inevitable result if the U.S. hadn't prepared to act at some point in the near future.

Seth Mandel: ‘Get Him Before God Does’

There is a line in an Israeli spy movie, Walk on Water, that sums up this idea quite nicely. As the Mossad director gives his employee an important assassination assignment, he says to the younger man: “Get him before God does.”

The assignment is to eliminate an old Nazi war criminal. But the aging German will die of old age sooner than later, so why go through all the trouble now? The answer is that Nazi war criminals should stop feeling hunted only when they shuffle off this mortal coil. Eliminating the Nazi official means delivering justice to his victims and to those who will never be his victims now. It doesn’t have to be more complicated than that.

Israel does so much that benefits the rest of the world that sometimes people seem to forget that it is its own country with its own interests. Hence the increasing absurdity of the discourse around Israel’s objectively-successful military campaigns. Will killing Ali Larijani solve global warming? Will taking out Hassan Nasrallah end world poverty? Will any one action by the IDF end all wars forever? If not, the media doesn’t see a reason to do it.

But Israel is defending its citizens and dispensing justice, and that is reason enough. “Someone else will just replace Larijani” entirely misses the point. Because by this logic, putting a mob boss in prison will only cause someone else to take over the family, continuing a cycle of crime and retribution without eliminating the existence of organized crime itself.

As a matter of course, we punish criminals for the crimes they commit. Only when it comes to Israel do we suddenly agonize over the point of it all.

But Israel doesn’t agonize over the point of it all. Israel was reconstituted as a modern state during an era when Jews were being killed in the most horrible ways imaginable with no recourse. Those days are over.

Truth is, that section of the Times story about the history of Israel’s retaliatory missions is a fair guide to the near future as well. A lot of bad people and groups were involved in starting this war. The fact that Israel’s retaliatory campaign is so protracted should not be a criticism of Israel but a reminder of just how destructive and shattering October 7 was, and how widely the culpability for it is spread. The victims of that terrible day are no less deserving of justice just because there are so many of them.

Israel Is Hunting Down Iranian Regime Members in Their Hideouts

Ali Larijani, Iran's top security official, strolled confidently Friday through a rally of regime loyalists in central Tehran. Early Tuesday, Israel's intelligence services found Larijani with other officials at a hideout on the outskirts of Tehran and killed him with a missile strike.

The same night, Israel got a tip from ordinary Iranians that the leader of the Basij militia, Gholamreza Soleimani, was holed up with his deputies in a tent in a wooded area in Tehran. He, too, was struck and killed. The killings were made possible by a growing harvest of intelligence about possible targets.

With thousands of regime members killed, Iranians are reporting that a sense of disorder is starting to take hold. Security forces are under stress and on the run. Israel is chasing security forces from their headquarters to muster points, then on to hide-outs under bridges. The advanced technology deployed by Israel and the penetration of Iranian society by its agents are creating the greatest threat yet to the regime.

Israeli intelligence learned that Iran had a fallback plan for its internal security forces in the event their facilities were destroyed - mustering at local sports complexes. Israel watched the sites fill up and then hit them, killing hundreds of members of the security services and military, the vast majority at Azadi Stadium, a large venue for soccer games.

Israeli intelligence officials began placing calls to individual commanders, threatening them and their families by name if they didn't stand aside in the event of an uprising. In one call between a senior Iranian police commander and an agent of the Mossad, Israel's foreign-intelligence service, the agent said in Farsi, "I called to warn you in advance that you should stand with your people's side, and if you will not do that, your destiny will be as your leader." The commander responded, "Brother, I swear on the Quran, I'm not your enemy. I'm a dead man already. Just please come help us."

Israel's air force began operating fleets of loitering drones above Tehran and other areas. Their attacks were in many cases guided by tips sent by ordinary Iranians, Israeli security officials said. On Sunday night, Israeli forces conducted a targeted hunt for Basij checkpoints, hitting 11. Residents said many security officers are hiding in residential buildings. When they move in, the neighbors evacuate, fearing a strike.

Israel's security establishment believes Iran's crumbling economy and popular anger have put the regime on an irreversible path to collapse, whether it happens during the war or down the road.

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03/10 Links Pt2: Forget ‘Islamophobia’ – it’s Islamism the West should be fighting; Is ISIS now part of the ‘progressive’ alliance?; Pro-Iran Al-Quds Day march in London CANCELLED

From Ian:

Brendan O'Neill: Forget ‘Islamophobia’ – it’s Islamism the West should be fighting

The word ‘Islamophobia’ might be gone, but the tyrannical impulse is the same: to keep a beady eye on commentary about Islam. To ensure the masses’ rude blather on that religion is not too ‘intimidating’, too ‘stereotyping’, too far beyond the government-decreed bounds of ‘the public interest’. This is a blasphemy law by the backdoor. Once more, it is the policing of irreligious speech in the drag of anti-racism. For all the lip service the new definition pays to freedom of speech, the entire point of singling out Islam as uniquely deserving of government pity and attention is to circumscribe discussion. As shadow justice minister Nick Timothy says, this latest effort to lavish special protections on Islam is yet another ‘attack [on] our freedom to criticise, satirise and scrutinise ideas’.

The announcement of a bureaucratic offensive on ‘anti-Muslim hostility’ would be worrying at the best of times. That it has come now, at the outset of the Iran War, as we are witnessing explosions of Islamist intolerance, is mindblowingly reckless. The evidence of our eyes is that Britain and the West are afflicted with Islamism. With large numbers of people who feel a greater affinity with the anti-Semitic tyrants of Tehran than they do with the nations in which they live. Where’s the tsar for that, Keir Starmer?

Forget ‘anti-Muslim hostility’ – who will protect us from the anti-Western hosility of the Islamist mob? To weep showy tears over the ‘rise of hatred’ without mentioning the hatred for our own civilisation that courses through the veins of the Islamist movement and its suicidal allies on the bourgeois left is nothing short of insane. That we only ever hear chattering-class bleating about ‘hatred’ when the targets are Muslims is so striking. It confirms how catastrophically blind these people are to the hatred for our society. The hatred for our values. The hatred for our citizens, almost a hundred of whom have been slain by Islamists these past 20 years. The hatred for our working-class girls, who were raped by gangs disproportionately made up of Pakistani men, who called them ‘white slags’, as officialdom looked the other way. And the hatred for our Jewish compatriots, who remain the key victims of religious hate crime, many carried out by Islamists.

The Iran crisis has shone a harsh light on our moral troubles on the home front. In the US, the UK, Europe and Australia, people have openly wept for the ayatollah and prayed for the defeat of America and destruction of Israel. Now that is hatred. That is hostility. This week there was an explosion outside a synagogue in Liege, Belgium. We saw the allegedly ISIS-inspired hurling of a homemade bomb in New York City. The Iranians suspected of spying on Jewish institutions in London remain in custody. And you want us to fret over some muppet on the internet making a joke about the burqa? This is something worse than fiddling while Rome burns. It’s the throwing of petrol on to Rome’s flames. For in sanctifying Islam as the most put-upon religion, the ideology most deserving of special protection, the UK government risks inflaming the very cult of grievance that powers the Islamist mindset. They think they’re tackling hatred when in truth they’re inflaming it, giving ever greater licence to the anti-civilisational self-pity of the West’s Islamists.

What a betrayal this is of the good people of Iran who thirst for freedom. There they are praying for the demise of their Islamist oppressors while we shake our heads over mockery of Islam. There they are tearing off their hijabs while we worry about ‘hijabophobia’. So long as we fear ‘offending Islam’, we will be incapable of standing up for our own values or offering solidarity to those valiant warriors for liberty in the Islamic Republic.

Seth Mandel: Blaming Jews for Global Sadness

There are two primary points to consider here. The first is the subject of O’Neill’s column, which is that the cause of “Palestine” is not about helping Palestinians but about helping Sally Rooney—and the legions of likeminded bored-to-death Europeans—get out of bed in the morning.

Indeed, Rooney asked in her speech: “What else can make our lives endurable in times as dark as these? What else, in the face of such horror, can give us a reason to go on, to fend off despair, to live with ourselves.”

To some people, the permanent war against the Jewish state is all there is.

But there’s a second point here, in addition to Sally Rooney’s personal cry for help. And that is the unbelievable irresponsibility of public figures portraying the war against the Jews as a war to rescue humanity and save the earth.

In addition to Rooney and Albanese, the conference included—according to its website—the notorious anti-Semite Jeremy Corbyn and Omar Barghouti, the founder of the main BDS movement which seeks the destruction of Israel.

It was, in other words, a conference devoted to drumming up enthusiasm for globalizing the intifada. There have been such rallies against Jews throughout history—many of them, in fact—and not a single one has been about making the world a better place.

Although the conference bills itself as progressive, one can hear in Rooney’s spiel an echo of America’s right-wing “lost boys,” drifting into white nationalism as a demented form of group therapy.

Throughout history, Jews have been blamed for a very long list of maladies. Ennui is a new one, I think. Yet in an era rife with the self-pathologizing of emotional duress, it makes a certain kind of sense that we’re somehow now being blamed for sadness, boredom, restlessness, loneliness, and the guilt of the privileged.

All these things are real and, to judge by the public discourse, on the rise. But scapegoating Jews is not the cure. One can imagine a television ad in which hand-drawn clouds morph into words describing the symptoms of depression, as a voiceover recommends one consult one’s physician before taking anti-Semitism. The civilizational side effects, after all, are pretty rough.

And those civilizational side effects are precisely what the superstars of the People’s Congress for the Hague Group are threatening to bring down on everyone’s head. Rooney’s assertion that Israel is the great enemy of all the earth is the reason for the war in the Middle East in the first place. It is a battle cry that brings death and destruction to innocent people all over the world. And bored literary poster children have no right to make it their coping mechanism.

Seth Mandel: On Coexisting with Supporters of October 7

Essentially, October 7 became the kind of dividing line that made a lot of Jews understand history.

So it’s a useful question to ponder: How should we act? After all, not only must we maintain precisely the values we did before, but we also should work toward returning society to a place in which support for October 7 is brings public shame. What follows are a few guidelines.

First, Jews must not permit our own beliefs to be diluted by a society that makes excuses for pogroms. Nor should it temper our own criticism of October 7. Fact is, October 7 should be a red line for all civilizations, and it must remain a red line for us. We should not hesitate to state and restate that fact—that unqualified condemnation of that day is a basic human litmus test—even in front of those who justify Nazi barbarism. Especially in their presence, perhaps. We do not accommodate, out of misguided politesse, those who think our children deserved to be burned alive.

Second, and this goes for non-Jews just as much as for Jews: Use October 7 as a barometer for political, ideological and moral hypocrisy. Not because we’re looking for “gotcha” moments, but because it is impractical to remain unaware of who can be trusted in public life. We know, for example, that people who travel in the same circles as Duwaji and her husband Zohran Mamdani are not interested in protecting women from sexual assault, and that when they sign on to such campaigns it is because they are lying. We know that when they falsely accuse Israel of child murder it is because they support the murder of the children of Israel. Another example: The war began with Hamas carrying out the largest massacre at a music festival in recorded history. Musicians and artists who ignore this and instead parrot the propaganda of those who carried out the massacre do not believe in artistic expression; they only believe in dogmatic political expression. Indeed, they support regimes that would abolish the arts entirely.

Third, do not “trade” for condemnation of October 7. Do not dignify someone’s attempt to say “if you want me to condemn October 7, will you condemn [some random perceived crime they want you to falsely equate with October 7]?” October 7 is not something to be bartered away to some bad-faith ideological actor. October 7 is not an opening bid in some negotiation. Take it or leave it.

Finally: Punish people politically for their refusal to recognize the barbarousness of October 7. Just add it to any public figure’s civic record. This isn’t holding a grudge, it’s just more practical politics. People on the wrong side of October 7 are expecting to benefit from some sort of statute of limitations—or the limitations of human memory. Instead, let’s help them remember.

Is ISIS now part of the ‘progressive’ alliance?

In case anyone out there might still be under the impression that the violent fanaticism of the lefty culture warriors is abating, Saturday’s events should lay that to rest. Lang’s stunt was undoubtedly designed to cause maximum offence, but the cognitive dissonance of the counter-protesters and the media was truly something to behold. It was the most clear example yet of the theory that ‘words I don’t like’ are literally violence, but literal violence from ‘people I like’ is not violent at all.

One counter-protester, Walter Masterson, was in the middle of delivering a Kumbaya, we-love-everyone speech when one of the two attackers threw the first bomb. ‘We want everyone here to stay in New York. You don’t get to come from outside, and then tell everyone else…’, he was saying as Emir Balat – who had indeed come from outside New York – appeared behind him and, with a facial expression filled with rage and hate, appeared to hurl the nail bomb just above Masterson’s head, before running away.

Another video posted to X showed the attack from Lang’s perspective. As he stood there, annoying the counter-protesters, the bomb landed near him, prompting him and his supporters to run away. ‘Somebody threw a fucking bomb, bro!’, says one man. ‘That was a nail bomb!’, says another. Voices are heard thanking Jesus that the nail bomb did not go off. Eventually, someone calls out, ‘Somebody’s gotta get the goat’, and a female voice is heard saying, ‘Oh the goat!’.

The mayor’s immediate reaction was to condemn the ‘vile protest rooted in white supremacy’. New York governor Kathy Hochul blamed ‘both’ sides. Never mind that one side came armed only with a goat and a bad attitude, the other with multiple bombs and gave a statement to police that read in part: ‘I pledge allegiance to the Islamic State. Die in your rage you kufar.’ (sic)

Masterson, the now famous counterprotester, posted on X earlier this week: ‘I stand by [my speech]. As a born and raised New Yorker, everyone is welcome. Everyone except chief goat-fucker Jake Lang.’

So according to these truly thick white liberals with precisely zero self-preservation skills, coming to New York to chuck bombs at non-Muslims is just part of life in an open, tolerant city. If anything, it should be celebrated! However, coming to New York to loudly complain about Muslims wanting to bomb non-Muslims is an outrage of the highest order and will not be tolerated.

Good luck with that, ya dumb bastards!

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02/28 Links: US and Israel launch major joint assault on Iran; Trump indicates goal is to topple regime; Trump says ‘evil’ Khamenei is dead

From Ian:

US and Israel launch major joint assault on Iran; Trump indicates goal is to topple regime

After long weeks of escalating regional tensions and burgeoning threats of conflict, Israel and the US launched a major joint strike on Iran on Saturday morning, with waves of attacks on sites across the Islamic Republic continuing throughout the day.

Strikes targeted Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Masoud Pezeshkian, an Israeli official said. Other top regime and military commanders were also targeted, according to the official. The results of the strikes were not yet clear.

Targets in the campaign, which began shortly after 8 a.m. Israel time, also included Iran’s military, symbols of government and intelligence targets, according to an official briefed on the operation, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss nonpublic information on the attack.

Several senior Revolutionary Guards commanders and political officials were killed, an Iranian source close to the establishment told Reuters. Among them were the commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Gen. Mohammad Pakpour, and Iranian defense minister Aziz Nasirzadeh, three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

US President Donald Trump announced that the US had begun “major combat operations in Iran,” calling the campaign “a massive and ongoing operation to prevent this very wicked, radical dictatorship from threatening America and our core national security interests.”

“We are going to destroy their missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground. It will be totally… obliterated. We are going to annihilate their navy,” he said in a video statement posted on his Truth Social account.

“We are going to ensure that the region’s terrorist proxies can no longer destabilize the region or the world and attack our forces.”

Trump indicated that the goal was to topple the regime, and he called on the Iranian people to seize the opportunity and take over their government.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in his own video message to the public that the operation was launched “to remove the existential threat” posed by the Islamic Republic, and “create the conditions” for Iranians to change their destiny.

“The time has come for all parts of the Iranian people… to cast off the yoke of tyranny and bring about a free and peace-seeking Iran,” the premier said.

Stephen Pollard: Donald Trump has just demonstrated the decisive leadership the West needs

Today that same Donald Trump – braggart, authoritarian and many other equally awful labels – stands before the world after an act of global leadership that makes all other leaders look like pygmies beside him. The decision to take on Iran and provide a platform for the destruction of the Tehran regime is one of the most vital and necessary acts of recent decades.

Trump’s statement this morning repays close reading. It is the most clear-sighted, compelling and important speeches by and Western leader since 9/11. For decades the Western nations have allowed Iran to grown in strength and deepen its threat. It has been allowed to become the global leader in state-sponsored terror. And the JCPOA – the Iran nuclear deal – was perhaps the most misguided international treaty in living memory. Who ripped it up? Donald Trump in his first term.

Now he is seeking to finish the job he started by using the might of the US military to cripple the Iranian regime and offer the brave, young people of Iran the chance of freedom. There is no greater prize in the Middle East. Iranians are natural allies of the West – and of Israel – and today is a day of hope and wonder, with the possibility now opening up that they might have the chance to witness the overthrowing of the hated regime. Naturally Trump’s war on the Iranian regime has attracted the ire of the usual suspects. Good. These are the same people who have either directly or indirectly aided the regime for decades. It is all to the good that they and their arguments are being treated with the contempt they deserve. This is no time for talk, but for action: and only Trump has the strength and bravery required to provide it.

Jake Wallis Simons: The world’s most evil regime is on the brink – and Britain has nothing to do with it

Where was Britain? As missiles reportedly killed the Ayatollah in Tehran, his office in London remained open. His ambassador has not been expelled. His Revolutionary Guards have not been banned in this country, even as they are under attack in their own.

Iran, together with its allies in Beijing and Moscow, is the clearest global evil since the Nazi regime. Its tentacles stretch into Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq, and into the campuses, mosques and protest movements of Britain. Yet our response has been more Neville Chamberlain than Winston Churchill.

What will it take for us to call an enemy an enemy? Domestically, the regime has murdered more than 40,000 citizens for the crime of calling for freedom. It has removed the uteruses of female protesters, injected prisoners with toxic substances, executed wounded activists in their hospital beds and demanded huge sums to return corpses of loved ones. The scenes of mothers weeping over the bodies of their children, or dancing in defiance at their funerals, have been unbearable.

Abroad, the regime is the foremost sponsor of terror, giving birth to Hezbollah, sponsoring Hamas and mounting scores of assassination and kidnap plots on British soil. Through its proxies, it runs a narcotics network stretching from Latin America to the Middle East, with supplies of Captagon alone fostering widespread addiction, violence and criminality.

Behind it all is a fanatical theology that lusts after an apocalyptic war to trigger the coming of the Mahdi, a 10th-century cleric who will supposedly return from invisibility to conquer the globe in the endtime. This is not an empty faith. For 47 years, the Ayatollah – who has reportedly been killed by a US or Israeli missile – has been plotting to fulfil this prophecy with a triune strategy of proxy militia, ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons.

That is where Iran’s resources and ingenuity have gone. While its citizens have languished in poverty atop the second-largest gas reserves on Earth, more than half-a-trillion dollars was spent on a failed nuclear programme and about $2 billion a year on proxy militia, for the sake of little more than bigotry and superstition.

Iran could have been a G20 country. Instead, in the fume-filled Palestine Square in central Tehran, a public clock counts down the hours to the supposed destruction of the Jewish state. Well, yesterday, while Britain blocked American warplanes from RAF bases because of “international law”, Israel and the United States called time on that countdown by rising to strangle the octopus.

The move was bold and fraught with risk. Without boots on the ground, there is no guarantee that the regime, which holds a monopoly on weapons in the country, will fall. If it does, there is no guarantee that a free, stable and democratic nation will emerge from the chaos.

But sometimes evil demands courage. What odds faced our soldiers on D-Day, or our pilots during the Battle of Britain? Which returns us to Downing Street. Hours after the war began, neither our Prime Minister nor his Foreign Secretary, fresh from humiliation at the hands of a political Islamist insurgency in Gorton and Danton, had even issued a public statement.

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02/18 Links Pt2: US likely to attack Iran, but Trump has not yet decided to do so; Jesse Jackson and the betrayal of the civil-rights movement; Eli Sharabi’s ‘Hostage’ memoir named Jewish book of the year

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: Two Cases Demonstrate How Anti-Zionist Propaganda Undermines Liberal Democracy

The significance of the Palestine Action case, in fact, threatens to obscure the importance of the fight over the hostage posters. But the hostage posters arguably represent the problem at the root of all this activism.

The Palestine Action non-convictions were made possible by a campaign for what activists called “jury equity.” The defendants’ own lawyer argued that they should be treated like suffragettes, not criminals. But how does a society—in a democratic country, with a free press—come to embrace that idea widely enough to nullify the law? And to apply it only when the motivating factor is Jew-hatred?

To answer that, we only have to listen to the people who tear down hostage posters. In the case cited above, here’s how the defendant, Fiona Monro, explained her destructive actions:

“The board was clearly there to justify the genocide that was happening. A large laminated board with a photograph of a hostage was highly inflammatory to many people in that community clearly found it very upsetting to have that constantly thrust in our face daily.”

This is genuinely insane. The central claim of hers is that “a photograph of a hostage was highly inflammatory” and that people understandably “found it very upsetting.”

It is a picture of a Jewish person who was kidnapped during a pogrom and then murdered by his kidnappers.

You cannot get to the Palestine Action acquittals until your society produces enough people like Fiona Monro and those she claims to represent.

The people who tear down hostage posters represent a genuine threat to the functioning of a free society. They are an indication that the virus of anti-Semitism has metastasized to the point at which self-government becomes imperiled. As Britain is the first to belatedly realize.

NGO Monitor: Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor

Introduction
Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor’s current and former Board Chairs appear on a 2013 list, published by Israel, of Hamas’ “main operatives and institutions” in Europe.

Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor appears in the European Union’s transparency register, a “database listing ‘interest representatives’ (organisations, associations, groups and self-employed individuals) who carry out activities to influence the EU policy and decision-making process.”

In their own words “youth-led independent, nonprofit organization that advocates for the human rights of all persons across Europe and the MENA region, particularly those who live under occupation, in the throes of war or political unrest and/ or have been displaced due to persecution or armed conflict.”

Funding
Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor does not publish any financial date on its website, reflecting a complete lack of transparency and accountability.

According to its website, “Since the establishment of the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, we have completely refused all offers of funding, sponsorship or support from government and faction bodies to protect our vision and narrative, to ensure an unbiased perspective and to resist external influences and pressures. We, however, rely on individual donations, project funding by independent international organizations, as well as crowdfunding campaigns, which are launched by our crowdfunding team several times a year.”

Euro-Med Monitor’s program “We are not Numbers,” which provides “training to developing storyteller–journalists in Palestine,” is fiscally sponsored by Nonviolence International.
Nonviolence International co-founder Jonathan Kuttab is also co-founder of Palestinian NGO Al-Haq. On October 22, 2021, the Israeli Ministry of Defense declared Al-Haq a “terror organization” because it is part of “a network of organizations” that operates “on behalf of the ‘Popular Front’.”

Ties to Terror
Ramy Abdu, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor Founder and Chairman
In November 2020, Israel Minister of Defense Benjamin Gantz signed an administrative seizure order against Ramy Abdu under Israel’s anti-terrorism law. The order was issued “in relation to his work with the [Israeli]-designated terrorist organization ‘IPalestine- International Platform of NGOs Working for Palestine…that belongs to and acts on behalf of…Hamas” Abdu served as a Board member.
The order was in effect until August 1, 2022.


Ramy Abdu appeared on a 2013 list, published by Israel, of Hamas’ “main operatives and institutions” in Europe. The institutions included The European Campaign to End the Siege on Gaza (ECESG), European NGOs Empowerment Services (ENES), and the Council for European Palestinian Relations (CEPR).
A 2011 publication by Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center described Ramy Abdu as ECESG’s coordinator.

In 2013, Council for European Palestinian Relations (CEPR) and PALThink organized an event, “Hamas Movement within the International Context,” featuring Hamas leader Osama Hamdan. At the event, Ramy Abdu, then CEPR’s Palestine Office Manager in Gaza, sat next to Hamdan and was a keynote speaker.

Mazen Awni Issa Kahel (Mazen Kahel), Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor chair 2015–2019 Mazen Kahel appeared on a 2013 list, published by Israel, of Hamas’ “main operatives and institutions” in Europe. The institutions included The European Campaign to End the Siege on Gaza (ECESG), European NGOs Empowerment Services (ENES), and the Council for European Palestinian Relations (CEPR).

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01/30 Links Pt1: UN Chief Guterres warns of UN's 'imminent financial collapse'; MSF withholds staff lists from Israel; It’s not war in Iran, it’s mass murder on a scale close to Babyn Yar

From Ian:

Jonathan Tobin: Stop chasing after the Saudis to join the Abraham Accords

That has been a key element of the price tag the Saudis put on their joining the accords. That sounded right to an American foreign-policy establishment that continued to believe that a two-state solution was the only way to end the conflict. Of course, as Palestinians have made clear, over and over again, they have no interest in the idea if it means they’ll have to commit themselves to living in peace with a Jewish state, no matter where its borders are drawn.

After the Second Intifada (2000-2005), and then Oct. 7, the once broad Israeli support for the concept has evaporated. Even most left-wing Israelis know that the Palestinians aren’t interested in peace. Acquiescing to demands for Palestinian statehood would have meant repeating the same catastrophic blunder made by the late Ariel Sharon when he withdrew from the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2005, thus setting in motion the events that allowed Hamas to seize control of the coastal enclave and eventually to be able to commit the atrocities in southern Israel on Oct. 7. Doing so in the far larger and more strategic areas of Judea and Samaria (the “West Bank”) would have endangered the very existence of the state.

It’s equally true that the Saudis have no real desire to help create another failed Arab state that would, in all likelihood, be a perfect target to be taken over by Islamists—in this case, Hamas. Yet even before the Palestinians won general Arab and Muslim sympathy by launching a war on Oct. 7 with an orgy of mass murder, rape, torture, kidnapping and wanton destruction, the Saudis were only using the statehood issue to help deflect pressure to join the Abraham Accords.

That should serve as a reminder to Israelis and Americans not to be too disappointed by the Saudis’ decision to attempt to reclaim their status as the leader of Islamist rejectionist forces in the region, a stance that, in recent years, they surrendered to Qatar.

Would it ever have been worthwhile for Israel to have made such a grave sacrifice of its security concerns in exchange for Saudi recognition?

For Israelis, having the Saudis embrace them fully and openly as partners would have signaled the end of the Muslim world’s refusal to accept the Jewish state’s permanent place in the region. But setting up a situation where the Palestinian Authority would likely have been toppled by Hamas would have been suicidal. The scenario in which Hamas assumes control of the territories is a guarantee of nothing but another and even more bloody round of war.

As much as it’s nice to dream of a world where the region could truly be transformed into a “new Middle East,” such as the one that the late Shimon Peres dreamed of when he agreed to the 1993 Oslo Accords, 33 years later, Israelis still don’t live in such a world.

That’s why it is far better to keep such fantasies out of efforts to ensure that the Saudis remain outside of coalitions bent on Israel’s destruction. The Riyadh regime may still hope to develop its economy and needs to modernize its society to achieve that; however, it is never going to be entirely divorced from the Wahabi extremism that put their family in control of the Arabian Peninsula in the first place.

Riyadh can’t change
And so, Americans and Israelis should stop chasing after the vain hope of getting the desert kingdom to behave as if it is anything other than the Islamist regime that it has always been and likely always will be. The Saudis will always act in their own best interests, and if that lines up with a more Israel-friendly policy, then they’ll do that. And being realists and still desirous of friendly relations with the United States, there will be limits on how far they will go in terms of open hostility to Israel. But they can neither be persuaded nor bribed to give up their basic character.

It’s long past time for Washington and Jerusalem to acknowledge this fact and stop trying to pretend that Saudi Arabia is anything other than what it is. It may not be at war with Israel and may even prefer for it to, along with the United States, continue to act to deter Islamist forces that are hostile to Riyadh, even if they are no longer worried about Iran. But it’s never going to be a real friend or ally of a Jewish state.

South Africa declares Israeli chargé d’affaires persona non grata

South Africa on Friday declared Israel’s chargé d’affaires and top diplomat, Ariel Seidman, persona non grata and ordered him to leave the country within 72 hours, according to an official government statement.

South Africa’s foreign ministry, the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO), said it had informed the Israeli government of its decision.

South African officials said the move was based on what they described as “violations of diplomatic norms,” including the alleged use of official Israeli platforms to criticize South African leadership and a failure to notify authorities about visits by senior Israeli officials.

“These violations include the repeated use of official Israeli social media platforms to launch insulting attacks against His Excellency President Cyril Ramaphosa, and a deliberate failure to inform DIRCO of purported visits by senior Israeli officials,” said the statement.

In response, the Israeli Foreign Ministry designated South Africa’s top diplomat in the country, Shaun Edward Byneveldt, persona non grata, saying he must leave Israel within 72 hours, and that “additional steps will be considered in due course.”

Israel responds to South Africa, declares chargé d'affaires persona non grata

Israel has declared South Africa's senior diplomatic representative, Chargé d'affaires Shaun Edward Byneveldt, persona non grata and has been given 72 hours to leave the country, as announced in a statement by the Israeli foreign affairs ministry on Friday.

The action comes in response to South Africa's earlier decision on Friday, in which it declared Israel's chargé d'affaires, Ariel Seidman, persona non grata, according to South Africa's foreign affairs ministry.

Seidman is required to depart from the country within 72 hours, the ministry said in a statement on its website.

It went on to accused Seidman of "unacceptable violations of diplomatic norms and practice which pose a direct challenge to South Africa's sovereignty."

"These violations include the repeated use of official Israeli social media platforms to launch insulting attacks against His Excellency President Cyril Ramaphosa, and a deliberate failure to inform DIRCO (South Africa's foreign affairs ministry) of purported visits by senior Israeli officials," the ministry said.

Israel's diplomatic mission in Pretoria did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Israeli foreign affairs ministry statement referred to South Africa's action against the Israeli diplomat Seidman as "false attacks on Israel in the international arena."

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01/28 Links Pt2: Islamists have been given a veto over public life; Hundreds at funeral of Ran Gvili, Israel’s final hostage; A Hospital’s Shocking Treatment of a Bondi Beach Survivor

From Ian:

20 Jews murdered, 815 severe antisemitic attacks took place worldwide in 2025

Twenty Jews were murdered worldwide and some 815 severe antisemitic incidents were documented in 2025, according to a report released Tuesday by the Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism Ministry.

The total number of attacks was down from 2024, the ministry said without elaborating, while the number of deaths rose significantly from the one confirmed antisemitic murder in 2024, of Chabad Rabbi Zvi Kogan.

The report also recorded approximately 124 million antisemitic posts on X, formerly Twitter, and over 4,000 anti-Israel demonstrations, of which 365 were classified as posing a high or extreme risk to Jewish communities.

Antisemitic activity and rhetoric skyrocketed after Hamas launched its war against Israel on October 7, 2023. The data was presented during the International Conference on Combating Antisemitism, held in Jerusalem on International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

The highest numbers of incidents were recorded in the United States (273), the United Kingdom (121), Australia (45), France (44), and Canada (37), the ministry said.

The murders included 15 killed in the Hannukah terror attack at Bondi Beach in December, two killed in a Yom Kippur attack in Manchester, two Israeli embassy staff members killed outside the Jewish Museum in Washington, DC, in May, and a woman killed at a pro-Israel vigil in Boulder, Colorado, in June.

Other noteworthy incidents included an Israeli tourist hospitalized in Greece after a pro-Palestinian attacker bit off part of his ear in July; an elderly Jewish woman stabbed in a grocery store in Canada in August; the torching of a Sydney childcare center in January; the beating and attempted kidnapping of an Israeli in Wales in March; and the torching of a Melbourne synagogue with 20 people inside in July.

Belongings of members of the Jewish community are seen at the scene of a terror shooting at Bondi Beach in Sydney on December 15, 2025. (DAVID GRAY / AFP)

The data showed a clear correlation between spikes in violence and incitement and international security developments related to Israel’s war in Gaza, the report said without elaborating.

Brendan O'Neill: Islamists have been given a veto over public life

The Met imposed severe conditions on the UKIP march. No one, they decreed, is permitted to take part in a UKIP gathering anywhere in Tower Hamlets on 31 January. Their reasoning is truly scandalous. ‘We are not saying that the UKIP protest, in isolation, will be disorderly’, they said. But ‘we reasonably believe’ that ‘groups who are hostile’ will ‘find it provocative’. That means there could be ‘an adverse local reaction’ that might include ‘violence and serious disorder’. Strip away all the euphemistic cop-speak and what is being said here is that a right-wing, pro-Jesus rally is likely to piss off Islamists and thus it is forbidden.

If this doesn’t shock you, I don’t know what to say. The dictionary definition of appeasement is ‘giving in to hostile demands’ in order to maintain some kind of peace. That’s what happened here. The Met cravenly bowed to the belligerence of local bigots. They sacrificed freedom of assembly at the altar of ideological menace.

It matters not one iota what you think of UKIP. To prevent anyone from holding a ‘Walk with Jesus’ because you fear a ‘local adverse reaction’ is to play a dangerously divisive game. What the Met should have done is police those that they suspect will commit violence (local Islamists), not punish those who, by their own admission, are unlikely to be ‘disorderly’ (UKIP). In doing the opposite, the Met have made themselves the footsoldiers of Islamism and the enemies of freedom.

Who will now deny there is an Islamist veto over much of our public life? Courtesy of the moral cowardice of our institutions, Islamists enjoy staggering power over who is allowed to assemble in public, where, for how long, and for what reasons. The Met’s capitulation to Whitechapel extremists comes hot on the heels of the Maccabi Tel Aviv scandal, when West Midlands Police banned Jews from Israel from attending a game at Villa Park because they caught wind of the fact that local elements were planning to arm themselves to attack those Jews. West Midlands Police had earlier banned Birmingham’s 2025 Diwali celebrations, again out of ‘concerns for public safety’.

Anyone who’s thinking of gloating at the fact that a UKIP assembly has been forbidden should think again. For the Islamist veto, this trump card of violent menace, has also led to a prohibition on Jews from Israel and the brute prevention of Brummie Hindus from marking the most joyous festival in their religion. No one is safe from the extra-legal powers that our spineless rulers have gifted to noisy Islamists.

Recent history makes it clear where such kowtowing can lead. For what was England’s rape-gang scandal if not a vile byproduct of the elites’ fear of rocking the ‘multicultural’ boat? That industrial-scale abuse of mostly white working-class girls by men who considered them little more than ‘slags’, as police, councils and politicians looked the other way, was a testament to the horrors that can flow from official cowardice. And how does the Labour government respond to all of this? By obsessing over a new definition of ‘Islamophobia’, which will make it even harder for decent Brits – Muslims and non-Muslims alike – to discuss the Islamist scourge.

Tearing up the Islamist veto, shoving it in the shredding machine of history, is one of the pressing tasks of our time. Everyone who values secularism, liberty and equality should balk at the elevation of Islamist feeling over everyday freedom. This is how you respond when Islamists say a UKIP march, Jewish football fans or a Diwali celebration will cause them offence: So fucking what? Get over it. Stop being a baby.

When hate becomes a business: The monetization of antisemitism

Antisemitism has always adapted to its surroundings. Today, it has adapted to the digital economy.

What once circulated through fringe pamphlets or isolated gatherings now thrives online, in an environment where outrage is rewarded, provocation is amplified and attention can be monetized. Antisemitism is no longer just spreading. In many cases, it is being incentivized.

In the modern attention economy, clicks equal currency. Algorithms are designed to reward engagement, not accuracy or morality. Content that shocks or enrages travels farther and faster, and antisemitic material, unfortunately, performs well in that system. The result is not only broader exposure to hate, but a set of financial incentives that sustain and accelerate it.

We saw this dynamic recently in Miami Beach, where videos circulated online of influencers singing Nazi slogans and performing salutes, first in a limousine and later inside a nightclub. They laughed, played to the cameras, fully aware they were being recorded and without a hint of shame.

The episode spread widely because it was inflammatory. In today’s digital ecosystem, outrage fuels visibility. Visibility drives traffic. Traffic brings revenue. Antisemitism becomes content and content becomes cash.

Extremist figures understand this well. For some, antisemitism is strategic. Provocation drives attention. Attention drives donations, subscriptions, merchandise sales and influence. In these cases, hate is not just ideology. It is a business model.

What once existed on the fringes now operates openly on mainstream platforms, supported by systems that reward engagement without evaluating consequences.

When hate becomes profitable, behavior changes.

Repetition normalizes rhetoric that once would have triggered immediate alarm. Over time, the presence of money dulls moral resistance. If content is rewarded, it can begin to feel acceptable, or at least tolerable.

This is where the danger lies, not only for Jewish communities but for society more broadly. Antisemitism has become embedded in a digital economy that prioritizes virality over responsibility and profit over principle.

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01/05 Links Pt2: Tucker Carlson is an enemy of America; From Wikipedia Fiction To Witch Hunt; Maccabi fans ban: Police consulted mosques that hosted ‘anti-Semitic’ preachers

From Ian:

David Collier: The Lie Beneath the Tree: From Wikipedia Fiction To Witch Hunt

In September 2025, a large delegation of U.S. legislators visited Ofakim – a small town in southern Israel and one of the communities devastated during the Hamas atrocities of October 7, 2023. During their visit, they planted trees – a simple, universal memorial act in honour of the murdered civilians.

That act has since been recast by anti-Israel activists as something sinister. Campaigners immediately claimed the trees were planted atop a “depopulated Palestinian village” – and some have gone further, calling for the legislators involved to be forced to resign.

Through a chain of factual errors, activist myth-making, and the quiet authority of “reference” sources that repeat those errors as fact, a unifying gesture of mourning has been transformed into an accusation of moral wrongdoing.

The fabrication of Ofakim as a “depopulated Palestinian village” was subsequently laundered through a media corps that hounded and interrogated participants – not over facts, but over fictions and libels treated as truths.

The truth is simple and decisive. There was no depopulated village at the site of Ofakim. No erased community beneath the tree. Yet the claim persists because it was never presented as an allegation, but instead stated and repeated as established fact – embedded, cited, and endlessly recycled.

In advancing the false “village” narrative, campaigners are not uncovering a buried injustice. They are erasing the victims of a real one – all in service of a story that never happened.

In the end we are left witnessing a witch hunt for people who visited an ally of the United States and planted a tree in memory of those slaughtered in a terrorist massacre.

MacKenzie Scott Sends Millions to Terror-Tied Nonprofit Network

MacKenzie Scott, the billionaire ex-wife of Jeff Bezos, funneled millions of dollars to a left-wing nonprofit network that supports the nation's most virulent anti-Israel and anti-Semitic organizations, including some that are under congressional investigation for their ties to terrorist groups, a Washington Free Beacon review found. Scott announced the grant in an essay that cites Hopi prophecy, bird flocks, and sex as inspirations for her latest round of giving.

Scott recently disclosed sending at least $5 million to the Solidaire Network, which supports what it calls "the front lines of social justice movements" by offering grants to an array of left-wing groups. That includes Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), the US Palestinian Community Network, and the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM). SJP and AMP face investigations in both the House and Senate for allegedly coordinating with the terror group Hamas to spearhead anti-Israel protests in the United States. Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) pressed the FBI to investigate the "virulently antisemitic" PYM in September after its leader, Aisha Nizar, called on supporters to sabotage the U.S. F-35 supply chain.

Scott disclosed the grants and dozens more last month in an essay, "We are the Ones We've Been Waiting For," the title of a Hopi prophecy "written in the year 2000." The prophecy taught Scott the value of being "active participants in the co-creation of our communities." Scott also offered commentary on the "murmurations" of starling bird flocks "constantly creating their direction together."

"Generosity and kindness engage the same pleasure centers in the brain as sex, food, and receiving gifts," wrote the billionaire divorcee.

Scott's support for the network is part of an onslaught of spending that recently saw her surpass liberal billionaire George Soros's lifetime donation totals. Her approach to that spending is unique—Scott allows her grant recipients to use the money "however they choose" rather than designate it for certain projects or organizations. The Solidaire Network has used that freedom to fund radical anti-Israel organizations in the United States.

In addition to her latest donation, Scott gave the network $10 million in 2021 through her organization Yield Giving. The network went on to spend $2.1 million on a campaign called "Unity & Power" that aims to promote "Palestinian freedom."

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Unhinged Jordanian news site links the Native American sale of Manhattan to Jewish Mafia and the drug trade

My head is spinning from this op-ed in Jordan's Ammon News by Fares Al-Habashneh.

As far as conspiracy theories go, this one is a doozy.

He links Jews to the Mafia, the Mafia to the purchase of Manhattan Island in 1626, Harlem's Cotton Club, the global drug trade and finally Israel.

The global mafia originated in Sicily and migrated to America after the maritime and geographical discoveries of the 17th and 18th centuries.

American Jews forged an early alliance with the mafia from the European continent, and it was in Manhattan specifically that the American mafia was founded and launched.

American imperialism inherited everything from Britain, from the genocidal campaigns against Native Americans to the world of Jewish-owned banks and stock exchanges, and it also inherited the world of the mafia and drugs. In New York, white settlers forced the original inhabitants to sell Manhattan for $20.

This is the biggest and dirtiest deal in the history of capitalism and international organized crime. From that moment, the mafia, through its alliances in American business and financial centers, began to control the economy, trade, decision-making centers, and the stock market.

See? It is all so obvious!

After referring to a couple of obscure books and films the article winds up where it has to:

One of the central objectives of the Israeli project in the Middle East is to flood neighboring countries with drugs and transform them into markets for promotion and consumption, creating drug-related chaos

Habashneh has written quite a lot for Jordanian media outlets. 

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Buy EoZ's books  on Amazon! "He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024) PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

 

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12/20 Links: ISIS kills Jews while Australian politicians blame guns; The Progressive Takeover of Jewish Campus Life; A Son’s Eulogy for Norman Podhoretz (1930-2025)

From Ian:

John Podhoretz: A Son’s Eulogy for Norman Podhoretz (1930-2025)

So many nice things have been said about him the past couple of days that my sister Naomi pointed out it was a genuine shame he wasn’t here to read them and hear them, because you just cannot imagine how much he would have enjoyed it. How much he would have enjoyed the tributes from Senator Cotton, and Ruth Wisse, and Jonathan Tobin, and Abe Greenwald, and Noah Rothman, and Matthew Continetti, and Elliot Kaufman, and Barton Swaim, and Yuval Levin, and Kathryn Jean Lopez, and Tevi Troy, and Seth Mandel, and Meir Soloveichik. He. Loved. Praise. But there was something in him, some iron in him, some deep well in him, that did not allow him to trim his sails or maintain the reputation that meant so much to him by acting with a careerist’s prudence.

That’s why his greatest flaw, or at least the quality that caused him the most unnecessary pain, was how much he continued to value or judge himself by the cultural settings established by the same fashionable folk who had rejected him for holding fast to his love of country and love of tradition and love of his faith—in Billy Joel’s words, “the people that he knew at Elaine’s.” I once told him that he didn’t know who he was, by which I meant, he had no idea how many people had been influenced by him, who viewed him as a titanic figure, who saw him as one of the great men of our time. He had no idea, really, because while he had contempt for the New York City bubble, he remained inside it for most of his life, and couldn’t find his way out, even after the bubble itself lost control of things.

But not always. In 2004, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In his room at the Hay-Adams Hotel the morning of the ceremony, he sat on his bed as he began to get dressed and began to sob and could not stop sobbing. He was 74 years old at the time. His father had been a milkman. He had shared a pullout couch with a very young uncle in the living room of the family tenement flat until he was 18. His magazine never had more than 30,000 real subscribers. He hadn’t published a bestseller. But there he was, a first-generation Jew whose parents were never fully fluent in English, who never took the easy path, and in a matter of hours the president of the United States would be garlanding his neck with the nation’s highest civilian honor. He wept with gratitude. As he said in his book, My Love Affair with America, “What America has done for me could not have been done for me alone, and could not have been done at all if the institutions, ideas, and attitudes that grew out of its founding assumption had not been in place and applicable to all who were lucky enough to live under them.”

What was this, really, but humility in its highest form? It was the humility that said what has happened to me in my life, the greatest gifts of my life, were gifts—gifts from the Almighty, gifts from the founder, things he did not do for himself but that America “has done for me.”

But there are things he did for himself, and by himself, that marked him as a great-souled person, and they are matters he did not write about, nor did he seek celebration for. If I am a good man, and I hope I am, it is because of the gift he gave me of showing me what it truly means to be a man. Not because he was tough, or intellectually honest, or brave, or possessed of good views. It’s because of what he did for my sisters.

I have three sisters. Ruthie and I are his issue. Rachel and Naomi were not. They were the children of our mother’s first marriage. Norman married Midge when Rachel was 5 and Naomi was 4. Rachel and Naomi had a father. Norman was determined not to interfere with the parental rights or paternal connection between Rachel and Naomi and their biological father. And yet. That man would miss his child-support payments. And that man would skip out on some of his time with them. And when they did have time with him, the girls would often come home from their visits sad or upset or gloomy. A lot of this took place before I was born. Rachel was 10 when I was born and Naomi was nine. And I swear to you. I swear to you. This is my truth, as they say. I never, ever, ever, ever, felt that he was any more of a father to me than he was a father to Rachel and Naomi. Whom he at some point determined he was simply going to have to raise, and care for, and succor, and support, and love.

He became their father. This was a choice he made. It was a choice that, in some fundamental sense, he did not have to make. What he was obliged to do was to be kind to Rachel and Naomi, and be friendly to them, and treat them well. He was a nice guy, so of course he’d be nice and friendly to his wife’s daughters. And they were smart and charming and cute, I assure you, and so, that being nice and friendly to them would not have been hard duty. Besides which, he was a kid. He was 27, 28, 29 when this challenge was presented to him. The challenge to stand up and man up and take responsibility.

So he clasped them to his heart. In a million ways great and small, he made certain that Ruthie and I knew we were not to view ourselves as different from them in his eyes. More important, we felt it. It was inhered in us. The only difference I could discern is that Ruthie and I called him Daddy and Rachel and Naomi called him Normie.

Of course the psychological story for all concerned was more complex than this, as I have come to understand as we all grew and we all aged and we lived through crises and disappointments and then through the horror and heartbreak of our Rachel’s passing 13 years ago, which tore a hole in our family that could never be mended, and then through the final years of our mother’s life. Through it all, we have always been close, closer than most, and more than our mother, more than our shared love for all our children and nieces and nephews and grandchildren and grand nieces and grand nephews, all 29 of them, this was possible because of what he did. He made that happen. He made Ruthie and me feel that Rachel and Naomi belonged to us and we belonged to them, because it could have been otherwise. But it wasn’t otherwise, because he looked at these two girls and he said, “You are mine too.”

On her deathbed, Rachel told Norman that he had made her feel safe. That phrase has been poisoned over the past decade or so, made political and false, but what she meant by it was that he had made the world under her feet feel steady. And what greater tribute could there be to his actions than the fact that it has been Naomi, whom he did not even meet until she was 3, who has been the primary provider of his care and attention these past three years? Ruthie and I owe her a great debt—but then, Naomi and Rachel alike were the greatest rewards we received from him in any case. They were ours because he made sure they became his.

So yes, he was a wonderful writer. And yes, he was a brilliant editor. And yes, he changed the world for the better. And I hope the world will remember him for all of that.

But the man I hope my children will emulate, and that their children will emulate, and all his grandchildren and great grandchildren here in this room—that man is the one who said I will be the father that my God and my wife and my honor demand that I be for these two little girls.

That is the greatest moral success story I have ever known.

That is making it.

Mark Levin: Tolerance, rational discourse are being smothered

The following is a transcript of Fox News commentator Mark Levin’s opening statement from the Dec. 14 episode of “Life, Liberty & Levin.”

The shooting at Brown, two dead students, others wounded. Terrible, terrible, terrible, and our soldiers murdered in Syria. I mean this is serious stuff, and I know our president will deal with what took place in Syria.

We are going to have to figure out how to deal with these colleges and universities. I am not sure but that we do need to figure out. And also this slaughter that took place in Australia.

You know, ladies and gentlemen, people have written books, Hitler’s American Friends, The Abandonment of the Jews, Beyond Belief, Buried by the Times, Stalin’s Apologist. People say that history repeats itself. Is that going to happen now? I fear it damn well might. You have two men slaughtering Jews on Chanukah. You know what it reminded me of? When I watch Schindler’s List, and that colonel goes on the balcony with a rifle. There are Jews in the field and they are working in the camp and he takes his riffle and he starts picking them off one by one as if he is shooting at deer or hogs or something like that.

With a United Nations that is nothing but a cesspool of Jew-hatred, the vast majority of European governments, left-wing governments, are appeasers of Islamists. You have Communist regimes such as China that arm our enemies and arm the enemies of Israel, stoking antisemitism in our own country. You have fascist regimes that are doing exactly the same thing. Monarchies in the Middle East. We have a Western press that is essentially a voice for Marxists and sympathetic toward Islamism, spreading blood libels, accusing Israel of committing genocide knowing they are using false information that Israel is creating famines, executing innocent civilians blowing up hospitals, schools and mosques.

Everybody knows exactly what is going on. Israel is not going in and doing these things. Israel is defending itself for the zillionth time against enemies that surround her trying to obliterate her and destroy all of its people. The Marxist paradigm of Israel the oppressor and its enemies the oppressed. A lie that Israel is occupying lands that are in fact the ancient, indigenous lands of the Jewish people. Do you have a Bible on your night table? If you read it, it will tell you right there, as will the rest of history.

Hamas operative behind group leading anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian marches in UK – report

A man said to be an operative for the Hamas terror group is at the head of an organization leading anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian protests in the United Kingdom, The Times reports.

Zaher Birawi serves as the chair of the Palestine Forum in Britain (PFB), one of six groups that make up the Palestine Coalition which has organized at least 20 rallies this year, including one this week to support detained hunger strikers from Palestine Action, proscribed as a terror group.

Israel said in September that Birawi is one of a number of “high-ranking, well-known Hamas operatives” involved in the Gaza flotilla movement. He is described on the pro-Palestinian outlet Middle East Monitor as a journalist, the chairman of the International Committee to Break the Siege on Gaza, and a founding member of the International Freedom Flotilla Coalition.

In October 2023, Labour MP Christian Wakeford used parliamentary privilege to name Birawi as one of four “senior Hamas operatives” active in Britain, The Times reports.

“This house rightly voted to proscribe Hamas in its entirety in November 2021,” he said. “It is therefore a serious national security risk for Hamas operatives to be living here in London.”

One of the other three individuals named by Wakeford was Ziad El Aloul, who is also connected with PFB, The Times says.

ISIS kills Jews while Australian politicians blame guns

Albanese’s response sends a chilling message to Australia’s Jews: We will protect you symbolically, but we will not confront those who want you dead. We will light candles, hold vigils and issue statements, but when it comes to naming the ideology that made the massacre possible, we will avert our eyes and purse our lips.

This pattern is not new. Jews have seen it across Europe, North America, Britain, Canada and Australia. When jihadists attack Jews, the authorities’ response is always curiously oblique. Leaders speak of “hate,” “extremism” or “violence,” as though these were free-floating abstractions. The word antisemitism is often whispered. Islamism almost never is.

This is because acknowledging Islamist antisemitism shatters too many illusions and upsets too many powerful constituencies. It would force governments to confront the limits of multiculturalism, to debate immigration honestly and to acknowledge the uncomfortable truth that some belief systems are not merely “different,” but actively hostile to liberal democracy and minority safety.

It also complicates the preferred narrative—a superb piece of inverted fiction in which Jews are cast as powerful oppressors rather than perpetual targets. In progressive moral hierarchies, Jews are rarely granted the status of innocent victims. Naming Islamism as the enemy would force a reckoning that many Western elites are desperate to avoid.

So instead, governments regulate objects.

Every time a leader responds this way, extremists learn that their ideology will not be challenged, that their networks will not be named and that their religious justifications will be handled delicately, if at all. The state will busy itself rearranging furniture while jihadists plan their next attack.

Here is what I want Australia’s leaders to say: Australia has a problem with Islamist extremism, and Jews are being targeted because they are Jews. There. That wasn’t so hard, was it? I didn’t even need to issue a press release or hold a media event.

Solving the Islamism problem will require acknowledging its scale and severity; deploying extensive intelligence resources against radical networks; and embracing deportations, surveillance and prosecutions where necessary.

Above all, it will require the courage to say that these ideas and beliefs do not belong—and cannot belong—in a liberal democracy.

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12/17 Links Pt2: Norman Podhoretz, American Patriot , 1930-2025; David Collier: The al-Shifa Hospital Hostage Convoy; Trump: ‘I Will Always Be A Friend And A Champion To The Jewish People’

From Ian:

The light answers

In 1931, Rachel Posner placed her family’s chanukiyah on a windowsill in Kiel, Germany. Across the street hung a Nazi flag. She photographed the scene and wrote on the back: “ ‘Death to Judah,’ says the flag. ‘Judah will live forever,’ the light answers.” That menorah now resides at Yad Vashem, returned each year to Posner’s descendants to light anew.

The light answers. It answered in ghettos where Jews fashioned menorahs from scraps. It answered in Soviet gulags where prisoners risked everything for observance. It answers today, when Jewish communities worldwide face the highest levels of antisemitic vitriol and violence in decades.

To every Jew reading this, I plead: Do not dim your flame. Place your chanukiyah in the window. Let it be seen. The entire purpose of pirsumei nisa is to proclaim, publicly and unapologetically, that we are still here. Darkness has tried to extinguish us before. It has failed. It will fail again.

And to our neighbors—Christians, Muslims, those of other faiths or no faith at all—I ask you to consider lighting candles of your own. In 1993, after a brick was thrown through a Jewish child’s window in Billings, Montana, thousands of non-Jewish households placed menorahs in their own windows. The message was unmistakable: An attack on our Jewish neighbors is an attack on us all.

We need that message again. The Lubavitcher Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson—taught that Chanukah carries “a universal message of freedom of the human spirit, freedom from tyranny and oppression, and of the ultimate victory of good over evil.” When Project Menorah encouraged non-Jews to display menorahs after Oct. 7, 2023, rabbis responded with overwhelming support. What matters is the intent. Not appropriation, but alliance. Not mimicry, but moral witness.

As the Rebbe wrote, “a little light dispels a lot of darkness.” The Chanukah menorah is not a mere decoration. It is a statement of resolve—that light persists, that the few can overcome the many, that the sacred endures and that evil is a mere shadow against the light.

Rabbi Eli Schlanger died bringing that light to his community on a beach in Sydney. In Los Angeles, plotters driven by the same hatred were stopped before their bombs could detonate. The light endures while darkness fails.

Tonight, and every night of Chanukah, I will add another flame. The darkness grows no darker, but our light grows stronger. Place your candles where they can be seen. Let the light answer.

Reading Washington’s signals: Redefining Israel’s role in America

The United States is gradually shifting its view of the Middle East from a troubled region to an emerging one. This forming zeitgeist is exactly where Jerusalem must meet Washington. Israel cannot offer luxury planes or other expensive gifts, much less free oil. What it can offer is a realization of America’s vision for the Mideast, a source and destination of investments.

Unlike its neighbors, Israel’s greatest asset is its people and their minds. Israeli innovation has produced an exceptionally high number of companies that are traded on American stock markets. Tel Aviv’s stock exchange is one of the best-performing in the world, especially considering the circumstances of the last half-decade. In the wake of the two-year, seven-front war, the country’s defense exports have reached an all-time high, with its missile-defense systems utilized throughout much of the world.

To an extent, Israel is already offering the United States access to much of this. Many Israeli-origin defense articles are developed and produced jointly with the United States. The two nations work together to engage in research that enables the creation of cutting-edge technologies, ensuring a mutual qualitative edge. Israeli entrepreneurs will try their luck in Silicon Valley or on Wall Street long before they’ll do so in any European or Asian capital. What’s missing is a greater governmental commitment to these efforts.

The message from Washington is clear: America wishes to see Israel elevated to the level of an equal partner and ally.

U.S. diplomats visit the country, see construction booms in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and rightfully conclude that it is capable of this. Israeli governments, whoever might lead them in the future, should step up to this moment and pursue extensive business diplomacy with the United States. Their primary task is to make sure that every emerging American entrepreneur is fully aware of just what it is—and just how much of it—Israel can provide.

Since the “classic” American reasons for maintaining a strong relationship with Israel seem to lose validity with each passing year, it is on Jerusalem to create new ones. To that end, it must showcase its advantages and make certain that they work in America’s favor. While this most recent prescription was jotted by the Trump administration, a proper Israeli response will resonate on both sides of the aisle and can define the relationship between the two countries for decades to come.

The Saudis have mastered the art of manipulation

The message was clear: Saudi Arabia has successfully bought American support while keeping its options open with Washington’s greatest adversary.

Meanwhile, Trump has made clear through his negotiations on Gaza, Lebanon and Iran that he is much more concerned with satisfying Arab interests than Israel’s. In that regard, he, too, is an Arabist.

Israel has traditionally been allied with the United States due to shared values and interests. Trump, however, cares only about interests—financial interests. He is unbothered by the disparate values of dictatorships. The murder and dismemberment of an American journalist doesn’t interest him. The Saudis are also less troublesome than the pesky Zionists, whom he sees as ruining his chance for the Nobel Peace Prize. The Saudis also have more to contribute to both the American and the Trump family coffers than the Israelis.

Trump is not necessarily pro-Israel; he is transactional. Values do not factor into the transaction.

Moreover, the deals with the Saudis benefit America. The pledge of up to $1 trillion in Saudi investment would inject massive capital into the American economy. Nvidia will prosper, and the contractors and subcontractors that make the F-35s and the other weapons Trump is selling will reap the benefits and create jobs. The economic activity will provide Republicans with talking points to showcase economic growth and industrial strength.

Trump is like his predecessors in appeasing the Saudis. The distinction is that the others weren’t interested in Saudi-Israeli peace. Instead, they were more focused on appeasing the Saudis’ supposed fealty to the Palestinian cause. Trump realizes that the Saudis have no love for the Palestinians. Notice that they have not agreed to allow any Gazans refuge in the kingdom or volunteered to pay to reconstruct Gaza. They look down on the Palestinians and support them only to the extent that it serves their interests.

This is why MBS appeared willing to sell out the Palestinians and normalize ties with Israel during talks with the Biden administration. But that became untenable after Oct. 7.

The crown prince fears that if he acts while Israel is killing Palestinians, then he might suffer the same fate as former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, who was assassinated by radical Muslims in 1981, several years after making peace with Israel in 1979. Moreover, as long as King Salman remains alive—a man steeped in antisemitism—normalization is unlikely.

Israel will survive Trump’s betrayal. Security compensation will eventually follow. Arms deliveries will be delayed and modified. Quiet intelligence cooperation with Saudi Arabia will continue against Iran. But the damage is real: The status of the Saudis has been elevated while Israel has been downgraded from strategic ally to negotiable asset.

A trillion dollars bought Saudi Arabia U.S. indulgence. Israel got nothing, except the lesson that loyalty, values and history carry less weight than a well-timed check.

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