Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, February 25, 2025

02/25 Links Pt2: The Anti-Semitic Takeover of the Health and Education Industries; Sydney nurse charged for threatening to kill Israelis; Roger Waters loses libel case

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: The Anti-Semitic Takeover of the Health and Education Industries
In order to believe anti-Semitism isn’t at a crisis point, you’d have to believe in coincidences to a degree that would strain credulity.

Two recent controversies provide cases in point.

First, from George Washington University: “A federal civil rights investigation uncovered evidence that the George Washington University faculty retaliated against Jewish students based on ‘shared ancestry-related advocacy’ by placing them in a remediation program after the students lodged an anti-Semitism complaint against an anti-Israel professor,” reports the Washington Free Beacon.

This incident has always been one of the most important anti-Semitism-on-campus sagas because it demonstrates just how far beyond the classroom the bias extends.

The investigation stemmed from a civil-rights complaint filed by Jewish students at George Washington taking a mandatory graduate course by psychology professor Lara Sheehi. (Sheehi has since left to work for a school based in Qatar.) According to the complaint, Sheehi attacked a student’s Israeli background in front of the class. She then invited an infamous blood libelist to give a guest lecture in which, according to the complaint, the speaker “suggested that good deeds done by Jews and Israelis are done to mask sinister activity.” She repeatedly denigrated Israelis and “lionized” a Palestinian who took part in a terrorist attack against a Jewish child in a candy store.

Jewish students raised their concerns with Sheehi at the beginning of the following class. Sheehi responded by denying that the textbook anti-Semitism the students had been subject to was anti-Semitism and that this was a “non-negotiable truth.” Zionism—the belief in equal Jewish rights to self-determination—was arguably the real anti-Semitism, she suggested, thus accusing the Jewish students themselves of being anti-Semites. Sheehi then encouraged the class to see the students’ complaints as evidence of Islamophobia, even though the Jewish students did not mention Muslims. Sheehi further defended her guest lecturer’s advocacy of violence against Jews.

The students spoke with an official in the psychology program who brushed them off, then a dean who refused to let them even exit the class. Sheehi then retaliated against the students by telling the faculty in the graduate program that the Jewish students were racists. She then initiated disciplinary proceedings against the students for objecting to anti-Semitism in a diversity course.

The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights has since vindicated the Jewish students’ account.

Mandatory diversity courses such as this have been common in recent years. Orwellian disciplinary processes against students are common. The language used repeatedly in this course—“Islamophobia,” “white Israeli racism,” “white fragility,” etc.—are common. Anti-Zionism is common, to put it mildly.

Which is to say: What happened here is common. And it was essentially a derailing, or an attempted derailing, of Jewish students’ professional education and careers because they were Jewish, full stop. All the evidence above suggests that, too, is common.
Seth Mandel: Antisemitism in America a "virus" which mutates - including as DEI
JFeed: To end off: obviously, none of us are prophets, but based on what you know now and assuming trends continue, how do you see the anti-Semitism wave continuing? Is it going to continue to be in recession or do you see an explosion happening?

Seth Mandel: So I tend to be an optimist by nature, but I'm not on this issue. So...I don't come bearing any sort of sunny optimism on this. I think that the reason we always rely on the comparison of antisemitism to a virus is because it mutates. And I don't think that anything in general stays the way it is. It's sort of like an object in motion stays in motion unless acted upon by an outside force. So it's gonna keep going forward and not just tread water.

I think that antisemitism behaves that way. And so on campus, we had the Tentifada and I wrote a piece warning that it can get worse than this, even if it's not as public, right? That these things have to change to survive. And the Tentifada, especially once the active war stopped, there was not gonna be the same amount of Jews for the tent protests, right? But there were the seeds planted among especially young activists that you could and should wave a Hamas or a Hezbollah flag or wear a hoodie with the picture of Abu Obeida, the spokesman for Hamas on it, like he was Shea Guvara. There was like this normalizing of explicit violence against Jews. And then we saw investigations and some arrests.

You may not have the numbers, but I think that antisemitism itself has been strengthened in a really important way during this time. And you don't need that many people to do terrible things. I'm not saying they're all terrorists on campus or whatever, or even budding terrorists, but the point is that they get, activists tend to get older. Activism itself tends to get older. And it's certainly true in American politics over the years.

Things don't tend to mellow out, pauses don't mellow out because if they do, they disappear, right? You have to always find a reason to push onward. And if your cause relies on the ability to shock, which antisemitism and the... Tentifada and a lot of the pro-Palestinian movement does, then what shocks people changes over time. It's the Overton window problem of moving the Overton window.

So I think that we've accepted, not we, but we as a sort of society, considering the behavior of a lot of elected leaders and institutional leaders, a certain level of Jew hatred as normal. And that wasn't the case before. They would have denied before October 7th and before all these protests, a campus administrator would have flatly denied that such a thing, that level of Jew hatred existed in those places.

And it's gone in those 16 months to now being: not only does it exist, but it's basically been sort of accepted as normal. And then the question turned to what do we do to make our campus safe for everybody? There's almost no thought given to the fact that they sort of read this vile Jew hatred in students and among professors and people on campus. There's just like, all right, well, what do we do about it? So that Jews stop asking, Jewish students stop asking to take their classes via Zoom. and they're not afraid to come on campus. It's been normalized. It's like, all right, this is the status quo.

The status quo is we've got chapters of SJP and all their followers and people who will behave like this and a very large number of people who hate Jews with every fiber of their being and will cheer violence against them with almost no limit. And that's like, all right, that's where we are. Now what do we do just to make our institution run? Not what do we do to turn back that tide and cleanse our institution of the ideas and the hatred and I would say the enabling agents of it, the things that push people to do that or see them as the incentive structure, I guess you could call them.

So, I don't know what form it's going to take. And like I said, it's not a partisan thing, and there's no way to see the future. But I think that there are warning signs that you just have to expect that whatever it is, this is a thing that mutates. And you have to just try to assess the political climate wherever you are. And think about how that virus might gain a foothold, how it might survive, and how it might evolve. in the changing environment. And that's really kind of the best you can do to try to stay ahead of it.
Trouble in Australian Jewish paradise
Australian Jewish community leaders explain the unnerving spate of anti-Semitic incidents in a country so long seen as a safe refuge.

Last month, two men with covered faces, dressed in black, came to a house in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs. They sprayed the garage with red paint, set the cars parked in the street on fire, and added anti-Semitic graffiti. Their chosen target was the former home of Alex Ryvchin, co-CEO of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, the representative body of the country’s Jewish community. They apparently thought that Ryvchin still lived there.

"My wife and I woke up early that morning, because we received the security camera recordings from our old neighbor who lives opposite," Ryvchin relates. "On the cameras, we saw a car pull up and two men pouring gasoline on the road leading up to the house and setting two cars alight. On one of the cars they wrote ‘Fuck Israel’ on one side and ‘Jews’ on the other side. For us it was a shock, but it’s one more event in a series of very similar attacks."

As Ryvchin says, this was certainly not the first anti-Semitic incident in Australia lately. Just over a month ago, for example, a children’s daycare center next to a synagogue in Sydney was set on fire, and in December a Molotov cocktail was hurled at a synagogue in Melbourne. According to data gathered by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, the number of anti-Semitic incidents in the country jumped to 2,062 in the twelve months to September 2024, from just 495 in the previous year. Community leaders tell of continual reports of harassment, abuse of authority against Jews, and shocking physical attacks. The other week, the premises of a Jewish-owned business in Melbourne were sprayed with the words "Gas the Jews".

As if that were not enough, a couple of weeks ago the world received a particularly viral demonstration of the anti-Semitism in Australia. Israeli content producer Max Veifer happened upon two nurses from a Sydney hospital on TikTok the other week. The two, Ahmad Rashad Nadir and Sarah Abu Lebdeh, refugees from Afghanistan, made clear at the beginning of the conversation that they were not exactly fans of Israel, but things rapidly deteriorated. Lebdeh said of Israeli patients, "I won't treat them, I will kill them," and added later, "I want you to remember my face, so you can understand that you will die the most disgusting death," while Nadir chimed in with, ""You have no idea how many Israeli dog (sic) came to this hospital and I send them to Jahannam (hell)."

The Australian authorities reacted quickly to the incident. The nurses were suspended from the hospital and an investigation was opened. But the situation has caused great anxiety among Australia’s Jewish population of almost 120,000. "We are chasing every rabbit down every hole, and that takes time," New South Wales deputy police commissioner David Hudson told "The Wall Street Journal." State and federal police have set up a special hate crime investigation unit. Last year, Australia outlawed Nazi salutes and the public display of Nazi insignia, and the other week the federal parliament passed government-sponsored legislation introducing mandatory prison sentences for hate crimes.

Even so, many in the Jewish community still think that the Labor government, headed by Anthony Albanese, is not doing enough. Whether or not that is a fair assessment, police helicopters currently patrol Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs nightly, and synagogues and Jewish businesses are protected.

How has a country perceived by Israelis as a place of refuge where no-one cares about their ethnicity become a place where they are hated? Local sources say that antis-Semitism began to rear its head in Australia straight after October 7. A few days after the war broke out, a grotesque demonstration took place outside the Sydney Opera House, with participants recorded shouting "Death to the Jews" and "Jews to the gas chambers." The world was horrified, the Australian government condemned the incident, but nothing substantial was done.
Sydney nurse charged for threatening to kill Israelis
A Sydney area nurse was charged for threatening to kill Israeli patients in a viral video that created a massive uproar around the world, the New South Wales Police Force announced on Wednesday.

Twenty-six-year-old Bankstown Hospital nurse Sarah Abu Lebdeh was arrested on Tuesday and charged with threatening violence to a group, using a carriage service to threaten to kill, and using a carriage service to menace.

The Condell Park woman was granted conditional bail and is set to appear at the Downing Centre Local Court on March 19.

NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb said in a statement that the antisemitic task force had exhaustively investigated the incident, in which Abu Lebdeh wished a harsh death on Israeli influencer Max Veifer that she wouldn't treat Israeli patients but instead would "kill them."

“Strike Force Pearl detectives must be commended for acting swiftly under enormous pressure and public expectation,” Webb said of the antisemitism task force established in December to address rising antisemitic incidents in New South Wales. "These charges have been laid following a lot of hard work and legal advice, received yesterday from the Commonwealth DPP [Director of Public Prosecutions]."

Webb noted that the detectives had to overcome obstacles and jurisdictional challenges since their commended their investigation on February 12. The NSW police faced controversy when they had contacted Veifer for a full version of the video, but had allegedly not provided him with an email address to submit the content.

The full video showed Abu Lebdeh and a male nurse engaging in conversation with Veifer over a random video chat platform. When the other nurse discovered that Veifer was Israeli, he said that Veifer would eventually be killed and go to hell.

02/25 Links Pt1: A Sickening Display of Evil; Noa Argamani addresses the UNSC; The Red Cross' shameful failure on Israeli hostages

From Ian:

A Sickening Display of Evil

This was not just a crime against innocent people, but a crime against decency and humanity itself.

Unsurprisingly, Hamas and their twisted apologists around the world still blame Israel for their deaths, saying Israeli airstrikes are what killed them. But this is a double lie, a twisted perversion of reality, of which Hamas have become such masters, on two separate levels.

Forensic evidence now shows the two brothers, along with their mother, were murdered by gunman, not in an airstrike.

But even if that were not true, Hamas has been responsible for every death, both Palestinian and Israeli, since October 7 and every day afterwards, no matter the context. If they had not decided to launch a genocidal war on the people of Israel then Shiri Bibas and her children would be alive today. So would every Israeli child and every Palestinian child and every Thai worker and every pensioner and every teenager dancing at a festival celebrating peace.

Everyone.

The ceasefire deal for the release of Israeli hostages held captive by Hamas was not a diplomatic negotiation. It was blackmail and ransom, no different than if someone was to hold a gun to your child’s head and threaten to pull the trigger unless you give in to their demands.

And yet some world leaders, including Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong, hail this deal as a step toward some kind of lasting peace, still failing to grasp the magnitude of the enemies Israel faces— their sheer brutality and unwavering, maniacal goal of destroying a country and its people.

Hamas does not seek compromise – it seeks annihilation, and any leader who does not understand this fundamental truth is not just misguided but complicit in enabling further atrocities. Can they truly not see that any group capable of the sadistic events of October 7, is totally incapable of forging any kind of lasting peace?

However, beyond the politics and the diplomacy and the international statements, is a very human story. In Israel tonight, there is a man called Yarden Bibas who was held hostage for 484 days of hell. When he was kidnapped, he had a loving wife and two small children – flaming red hair, smiles that could melt your heart. Today, his family is gone.

And so, our hearts will break, as they should.

Our tears will flow, as they must.

The grief is immeasurable, and the trauma in our community is real and it’s raw.

Throughout our history, we have endured unimaginable tragedies, yet we continue to fight for our existence and our rights, standing tall and proud – even if, at times, it feels like we’re standing alone.

We will mourn Shiri, Kfir, Ariel and every other victim of the October 7 atrocities. As painful as this moment is, it will not weaken our resolve, but strengthen it to keep on fighting our enemies so that such atrocities can never be repeated.

Seth Mandel: What Do the Palestinians Want?

The nature of the Arab-Israeli conflict is that a lot of people claim to speak for the Palestinians. In our current moment, that role has lately fallen to Egypt, which has been putting specific conditions on a postwar plan for Gaza.

Egypt opposes, understandably, forced population transfer. And it insists that any postwar plan puts the two sides on track to achieve a two-state solution.

But Egypt also opposes voluntary population transfer—that is, emigration. It doesn’t want Palestinians. Therefore, it opposes any plan that relocates Gazans while rebuilding the Strip out of fear they will land in Egypt (Jordan shares that fear for itself).

Arab countries simply don’t want Palestinians going anywhere. That is not what Palestinians want, as pollster Khalil Shikaki found by actually asking them: “On the eve of October 7, about a third of Gazans and about a fifth of West Bankers said they were considering emigrating from Palestine… The most preferred destination for immigration is Turkey, followed by Germany, Canada, the United States and Qatar.”

And that was before the war.

The more glaring contradiction between the purported spokespersons for the Palestinians and the Palestinians themselves, however, is on the two-state solution. Today the BBC premiered a documentary in which former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert displays the map of a proposed two-state solution he offered Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in 2008. Abbas rejected the offer.

It is not the first time the basic contours of Israel’s 2008 offer of Palestinian statehood have been described—those details came to light about a decade ago. But it is the first time that Olmert’s map itself has been revealed. And the documentary also gives us the reaction from Abbas’s then-chief of staff Rafiq Husseini.

The map was the result of a series of negotiations held between Abbas and Olmert. The two leaders agreed to hold a joint meeting of the their respective map experts the following day. History was, Olmert sensed, being made.

Yet, as Abbas and Husseini drove away that night, “Of course, we laughed,” Husseini says.

Of course they laughed! Nothing is funnier than stringing Israel along to a final deal and then walking away from the altar.

Hussein Aboubakr Mansour: Why There Should Not Be a Palestine

Watching the gruesome spectacle of Hamas parading dead bodies as cheerful families celebrated the occasion, Hussein Aboubakr Mansour came to the conclusion that “the Palestinian national cause, as conceived and developed over the last half-century, has become irredeemable.” The hope of a deradicalized national movement focused on building a new Arab state rather than destroying the Jewish one, Mansour argues, is in vain.

Any attempt at constructive state-building has been ground into dust by corruption, murderous factionalism, and the unabashed worship of violence. Hence, Palestine must die if the Palestinians are to live. Some might say it is drastic, even cruel, to declare that a people’s aspiration to statehood should be abandoned. But the events we just witnessed . . . are not an isolated atrocity but the peak of a long march of destruction. They reflect a deeper moral and cultural collapse: no meaningful leadership capable of guiding Palestinians toward a humane, tolerant society appears to exist.

To argue that Palestinians should be absorbed into existing states is not to remove their communal identity; it is to acknowledge that the formal structure called “Palestine” has, in practice, become a source of destruction for themselves and for the region. If the dream of a stable, rights-based Palestinian sovereignty were within reach, it would have emerged during at least one of the diplomatic windows over the past decades. Instead, repeated attempts have collapsed into bloodshed.

The idea of Palestine has, tragically, turned into an ideological snare that captures each new generation from birth, seeding them with the promise of “liberation” that only ever seems to produce more suffering. In many Arab countries, Palestinians have lived as second-class refugees for decades, denied meaningful integration or citizenship by the very governments that proclaim solidarity.

Perhaps the most merciful and responsible course is for the Palestinian identity—as a state-bound ambition—to be gently laid to rest while families find refuge in the more concrete structures that already exist around them. The cost of perpetuating a vision that repeatedly descends into cruelty is simply too high. If we truly care about the lives of Palestinians, Israelis, and their neighbors, it may be time to walk away from the fantasy of “Palestine” and offer every real opportunity for inclusion and a dignified future elsewhere.

Heavy machinery is entering Gaza - but they are still not finding "thousands of bodies" buried in the rubble

As I've been reporting, the Gaza civil defense officials have been claiming for a year that there are over 10,000 (or 11,000) bodies buried in the rubble of Gaza. This claim has been repeated by the UN, NGOs and the media without question.

Here are the number of bodies recovered each week since the ceasefire according to the Gaza health ministry:

The total is at about 670.

So where are the thousands of bodies?

Perhaps, you may argue, there is no heavy earth-moving equipment in Gaza to dig out the bodies. But last week, many such machines did enter Gaza. Gazans even put out a music video showing several Caterpillar bulldozers working.

One would assume that the recovery of bodies would be the top priority of the equipment, or at the very least they would be finding bodies buried under the rubble that they are clearing. One would expect that the number of recovered bodies over the past week would have gone way up.

Instead, the number keeps going down.

If the total number of bodies under rubble is about 1,000, then the trend we are seeing makes sense. There is no way that it is over 10,000. The Palestinian Civil Defense made those numbers up.

And the world believes them.

Then again, the pro-Palestinian crowd has an answer for this too: If the bodies aren't found, that is proof that they were vaporized.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

Vast majority of Gazans want Hamas out

A new poll, commissioned by the Institute for Social and Economic Progress after the Gaza ceasefire, finds Gazans do not expect and do not want Hamas to rule the sector in the future.

Only 12% expect Hamas to continue to rule, and only 6% want to see that happen.

A surprising 24% would like to see Gaza ruled by outside Arab forces.

Only 5.3% say that they would vote for Hamas in any (fictional) upcoming election. 29% would vote for Fatah, barely ahead of unnamed "Independents."

About two thirds of Gazans say that aid being diverted away from them is a real issue. Of those, 93% blamed "gangs," and a predictable 86.5% blame Israel. But 67% of them also blame Hamas for diverting aid.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

Ammon News writes that "The first bullet of (Palestinian) resistance was Jordanian:"

It refers to a conference that is unknown to Western sources and a subsequent attack near the Sea of Galilee:

105 years ago, Sheikh Naji Pasha Al-Azzam called on the leaders of Jordan and Palestine to hold a conference in Qom to confront the Jewish threat to the land of Palestine. If we were to call today to confront it, we would not have come up with stronger decisions than its decisions.

At that conference on resistance and the protection of Palestine, leader Naji Pasha Al-Azzam gave a speech in which he said:

“We must come up with decisions that include a rapid response to the enemies, provided that the response is by attacking the Jewish settlements and the determination of our clans and men. And God is with us.”

The Palestinians were not alone, and they will not be!

The first armed resistance organization and movement against Jewish settlement in Palestine was the East Jordanian Movement led by Sheikh Kayed Al-Mufleh Al-Obeidat, who fought the Battle of Tel Al-Tha'aleb with the Jewish settlers and was martyred with a group of northern knights:

Bilal Salem Al-Hajjat, Saeed Yousef Al-Quraan, Zatam Al-Quraan, Sultan Obeidat, Qaftan Obeidat, Muhammad Al-Azzam, and three mujahideen from Hauran.

They were the first bullets and the first martyrs on the land of Arab Palestine.

I cite the words of His Excellency Abdul Raouf Rawabdeh: “We are Palestine, and Palestine is us." No one has given Palestine and Gaza more than Jordan has given.

The Jordanian government Petra site describes the events in mostly the same way, having Jordan taking credit for attacking the British and the Jews. The History of Jordan page also describes the conference as Jordan supporting the "Palestinian people's revolution."

This is an obvious falsehood. It is anachronistic, since even Transjordan didn't exist at the time. This all occurred was during a short time period when the "Arab Kingdom of Syria" was declared, encompassing today's Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Israel. It only lasted a few months from March to July 1920. The "Jordanians" were attacking as Syrians, defending part of Syria. They were not defending Palestine as Jordanian sources now characterize the events; Palestine was considered part of the same Syria as the area of Transjordan was.

The battle they are referring to is the Samakh Raid, summarized by Wikipedia this way:

At the beginning of the Franco-Syrian War, the Upper Galilee was populated by several semi-nomadic Bedouin Arab tribes, the largest residing in Halasa, and four tiny Jewish settlements, including Metula, Kfar Giladi, Tel Hai and Hamra. While the Arab villages and Bedouin allied with the Arab Kingdom of Syria, the Jewish residents chose to remain neutral during the Arab conflict with the French.
Just prior to the French occupation of Damascus, the instability in Transjordan threatened to spill over into Palestine.[1] The sedentary clans of Bani Kananah, perhaps encouraged by members of the Istiqlal native to the Hawran, including such radical nationalists as Ahmad Muraywid and Ali Khulqi raided Jewish settlements in Galilee.[1] Early in the war, a Kfar Giladi resident was killed by armed Bedouin, greatly increasing tension in the region. Jewish villages were regularly pillaged by the pro-Syrian Bedouin on the pretext of searching for French spies and soldiers.
In April 1920, the Arab militants engaged British Army at Samakh and suffered a number of casualties as RAF planes strafed them on their way back across the Jordan river.[1] The event took place as some 2,000 armed Bedouins mostly from Transjordan attempted to attack the Samakh train station aiming to prevent the arrival of British reinforcements from Haifa.[3]

This raid appears to have been timed to coincide with the San Remo Conference, perhaps to foil the colonial plans of the British and French.

The official Jordanian government site that describes the raid says that the intent was to attack the Jewish settlements in Samakh, Beisan, and Tiberias, and it characterizes the Jews as panicking and fleeing.

While the details of the Samakh attack differ greatly between Arab and Western sources (one seemingly fair analysis in Arabic can be seen here,) we see here that Jordan not only takes credit for "defending Palestine" but for planning and attacking Jewish villages. At the time there was no organized Jewish defense force.

The official Jordanian government, today, celebrates attacks on unarmed Jewish civilians.

What normal people call "terrorism."

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

My Monday post joking about me applying for the job of "Palestinian Studies" instructor at Hunter College may have been tongue in cheek, but the description of the job itself points to a very uncomfortable fact: The entire field of Palestine Studies should really be called Anti-Zionism, and its obsession with Israel makes it a truly antisemitic field.

Let's review the topics that Hunter wants the candidates to be familiar with:

We seek a historically grounded scholar who takes a critical lens to issues pertaining to Palestine including but not limited to: settler colonialism, genocide, human rights, apartheid, migration, climate and infrastructure devastation, health, race, gender and sexuality.

Notice what is missing. Nothing about Palestinian politics, or culture, or history. Nothing about how Palestinian women or children or gays live outside the prism of "occupation." Nothing about how Palestinians treat animals or the environment. Nothing about how Palestinian Arabs live outside the territories, and the challenges they face as second-class residents in the Arab world for generations.

Most glaringly, nothing about Palestinian terror or "resistance," which is a fundamental part of Palestinian psyche. Most Palestinians support murdering Jews, in poll after poll taken after specific terror attacks. Palestinians consider salaries for terrorists to be the most important budget item for their government. They name schools and sports contests after murderers.

If Palestine Studies was a legitimate, objective field, why is it so centered on slandering Israel? All of the listed issues, without exception, are mainly about attacking Israel, not studying Arab Palestine. (I have sometimes seen papers on topics like Palestinian women's health or other issues that don't revolve around blaming Israel, but they are the exceptions that prove the rule.)

This job description shows that there is no room in Palestine Studies for debate on its core tenets. The field postulates that Israel is guilty of apartheid, genocide and settler colonialism. One cannot advance in the field of Palestine Studies without accepting those lies as axioms.

And yes, they are lies. But even if you do not accept that they are lies, you must admit that there are some excellent arguments on the other side of those issues. Within the bubble of Palestine Studies, however, these are settled issues. Any other opinion is not only unthinkable; anyone in the field who dares contradict the orthodoxy would be canceled and lose their jobs. Palestine Studies is as objective as a Yemeni Studies program where the only valid point of view is that of the Houthis.

Palestine Studies exists as merely an excuse for putting a scholarly facade on old fashioned Israel bashing. It is not an organic yearning to study Arab Palestine but purely a reaction to, and forum for attacking, Israel.

If you think that I am overly generalizing from Hunter College's job description, let's look at how the field is described in the website of Istiqlal University in Jericho. The "Educational Objectives and Outcomes" include:

Finding a Palestinian elite capable of engaging in a sharp, serious, scientific, academic, and cognitive engagement with Israel’s political, intellectual, religious, and historical system and its narratives that target the Palestinian cause.

Strengthening the Palestinian presence in the Arab collective memory, which Israel has begun to target through cultural normalization, and filling this void only through a solid and academic Palestinian presence.

The truth is not a goal. Countering Zionist narratives is.

And what kind of job can one expect to get after achieving a masters degree in Palestine Studies? Among others, according to the site, is working on boycott campaigns against Israel!

Or look at how the Centre for Palestine Studies at SOAS University of London chooses to illustrate its program - with a picture of a defensive barrier Israel constructed to limit Palestinian terror attacks against Jews but framing it as prison walls.

Their description of their fields of study is, again, Israel-centered (and also inaccurate.)

The question of Palestine and the lack of resolution to the so-called conflict with Israel has implicated various countries across the Middle East and North Africa and further afield. Palestinian refugees remain the largest body of refugees in the world, Palestine is the theatre of the longest ongoing illegal occupation recognised as such in international law, Palestinian holders of Israeli citizenship have been permanently engaged in fighting for their rights, and a wide range of social and political movements locally and globally claim to represent the Palestinian voice.

The best known purveyor of Palestine Studies is the Institute for Palestine Studies. They held their third annual Palestine Forum in Doha last month. The forum featured over hundred presentations over three days. Virtually every paper features or centers an anti-Israel component; even a lecture on Palestinian graffiti is based around the artwork drawn on the separation barrier.

If the field has nothing to say about Palestinians without referring to Israel, that is a strong indication that Palestine Studies, and indeed Palestinian nationalism as a whole, is a reaction and counter to Zionism that has little to do with "Palestine." In Palestine Studies, Palestinians themselves become bit players in a grand anti-Israel narrative. They are defined purely in relation to Israel.

If Israel didn't exist, neither would Palestine Studies.

Let's compare with Israel Studies. There are lots of people in Israel Studies programs who are anti-Zionist, who are passionate critics of Israel, even professors who would accuse Israel of apartheid or genocide. Being an anti-Zionist does not automatically disqualify someone from the field of Israel Studies.

Do you think there is a single Zionist instructor in Palestine Studies? The very idea is laughable.

All of this makes Palestine Studies a dogma, not an academic field. It is as scholarly as a Flat Earth society that debates whether the Earth is shaped like a circle or a square.

Since Palestine Studies is wholly congruent with anti-Zionism, that makes it effectively antisemitic. As Professor Andrew Pessin comprehensively demonstrates and as Jews worldwide can feel in their bones, anti-Zionism is largely a form of antisemitism. They are both characterized by the irrationality and obsessive hate of their believers. My book gives example after example of how anti-Zionism is modern antisemitism.

There is one major difference between how antisemitism infiltrated German universities in the 1930s and how modern antisemitism disguised as anti-Zionism has invaded Western academia. That difference is not complimentary towards today's academic antisemites.

The Nazis fired all professors who were Jewish or who didn't accept the racial purity beliefs of the Third Reich. They imposed antisemitism into all academic fields from the top down.

Today, no government is forcing the antisemitism/anti-Zionism that is rife in academia now. It is the academics themselves who are embracing a fundamentally hateful, anti-intellectual philosophy and imposing a set of beliefs that are utterly at odds with both the truth and with free inquiry. Palestine Studies may have been designed to make anti-Zionism (and therefore antisemitism) acceptable, but its false ideas have infected the rest of the social sciences and is moving into every conceivable academic field. It is almost comical to see how students and academics try to find new, novel crimes to accuse Israel of.

The German professors had no choice but to embrace antisemitic philosophy. Today's Western academics are too often the trendsetters for modern antisemitism.

Any objective review of Palestine Studies leads one to that conclusion.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

02/24 Links Pt2: Olmert reveals map of Palestinian state he offered Abbas; There was no famine in Gaza… according to famine review groups’ own data

From Ian:

Yisrael Medad: Jewish anti-Zionists weaponize Jewish customs to attack Israel

Jewish anti-Zionists have been gnashing their teeth in uncontrollable grimacing these past years in reaction to the IHRA’s (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance) working definition of antisemitism.

The definition includes denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, that Israel’s existence is a racist endeavor, comparing Israeli policy to that of the Nazis, or aiding the harming of Jews in the name of an extremist view of religion.

Those elements negate most of the essentials of Palestinianism, especially the version promoted by Hamas.

Psychotherapist Mark Golden, from Newton, Massachusetts, published a column in The Boston Globe on February 13 positing that criticizing Israel is not being antisemitic. Moreover, as a Jew, Golden asserted he is “offended when legitimate critiques of Israel’s violent campaign in Gaza are branded as antisemitic.”

He fears he may be silenced. All, of course, depends on the criticism’s content.

Jewish anti-Zionists
A decade ago, Richard Landes wrote that “forms of Jewish self-criticism need to be understood” as they can cross over “into pathology” when shared by Jew-haters and deniers of Jewish national identity who “would use it to promote demonizing and scapegoating narratives.”

And that is what has happened.

Golden’s column is in harmony with the recent “Stop the Ethnic Cleansing” advertisement published in The New York Times, which displayed the names of 350 rabbis and a few actors and public figures. According to the Vatican News, the ad was financed by progressive donors affiliated with the In Our Name Campaign.

This collective of Jewish philanthropists seeks to raise $10 million for organizations that support efforts to “build self-determination in Palestine.”

Their signatures were nowhere to be seen on a similar advert in 2005 when more than 8000 Jews, including corpses, were ethnically cleansed from Gaza. Nor will you see their signatures on petitions protesting a planned ethnic cleansing of 725,000 Jews from Judea & Samaria and post-1967 Jerusalem neighborhoods.

Who is calling who a Nazi?

The use of Nazi imagery has become so ubiquitous among Democrats that it almost precludes notice. But Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s parallels between U.S. President Donald Trump’s political agenda and the rise of Nazi Germany during his “State of the State” budget address on Feb. 19 hit a new low.

Veering from his speech, Pritzker, who is Jewish, referred to Nazis no less than six times during his criticism of Trump and his policies. In a glaring warning to Illinois citizens, he compared the rise of the Nazis to the Republican Party leader in the White House.

After castigating the president’s policies, including the deportation of violent illegal criminals, Pritzker said: “It took the Nazis one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours and 40 minutes to dismantle a constitutional republic.”

Such deceitful criticism of Trump reeks of partisan animosity of the basest kind. The governor’s confusing use of Nazi imagery is targeting the wrong culprit and, in the process, exonerating the real perpetrators.

Pritzker’s comments lend fuel to the anti-Israel and pro-Hamas protestors who have regularly used Nazi euphemisms against the Jews, libeling them as “genocide” perpetrators in Gaza and calling for the “final solution” for Jews all over the world. His comments ignore the reality of a president who was praised by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as “the greatest friend that Israel has ever had in the White House.”

Indeed, Pritzker’s rebuke of the president came on the same day that the Trump administration stopped all funding for the Palestinian Authority, which continues its “pay for slay” policies, paying terrorists and their families for murdering Jews. It comes two days after Israel received a shipment of heavy MK-84 bombs from the United States, following Trump’s lifting of a block imposed on the export of the munitions by the Biden administration.

Pritzker must not have gotten the memo regarding Trump’s executive order two weeks ago outlining a broad federal crackdown on “the explosion of antisemitism” in the United States, especially on college campuses. The executive order cites “an unprecedented wave of vile anti-Semitic discrimination, vandalism and violence.” It instructs U.S. policy to use “all available and appropriate legal tools to prosecute, remove, or otherwise hold to account the perpetrators of unlawful anti-Semitic harassment and violence.” This includes the canceling of visas for foreign students who are “Hamas sympathizers” and deporting “pro-jihadist” protesters.

02/24 Links Pt1: Detoxing Gaza: The Problem Beyond Hamas; Israel should judge all attacks by intent and respond accordingly; Where is the outrage for the Bibas family?

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: ‘Palestine’ has proven again and again it is a death cult of lies

These similarities are no coincidence. From the early years of the 20th century, when Hitler’s ally the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin al Husseini falsely accused the Jews of aiming to destroy the al-Aqsa mosque — a claim repeated even today by al Husseini’s explicit fanboy, the Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas — the attempt to suppress and then destroy the Jewish homeland has been a feature of Islamic holy war.

The Jews are the only people for whom the land of Israel was ever their national home. Palestinian identity is a fabrication that was cooked up in the 1960s by the Egyptian-born “Palestinian” terrorist leader Yasser Arafat — who was radicalized by al Husseini — and the Soviet Union, in order to steal from the Jews their ancestral home and their own history in those lands.

Yet Palestinianism is the default cause of Western progressives, who believe the lie that the Palestinians are the indigenous people of the land who have been exiled and oppressed by the Israelis — and are mostly merely wretched and poor and have nothing to do with terrorism.

But behind the Hamas storm troopers who led the October 7 attack, Gaza civilians poured across the shattered border to rape, murder and kidnap Jews and others.

“Ordinary” Gaza civilians paraded and abused those who were dragged back into Gaza and desecrated the bodies of those who had already been murdered.

The Arabs of Gaza not only elected Hamas, but the vast majority have said repeatedly that they support the murder of Jews and want Israel destroyed.

Polling shows even greater majorities for this agenda among the Arabs of the “West Bank.” Officials of Fatah — the main party in the supposedly moderate Palestinian Authority — have openly celebrated the October 7 atrocities and declared their intention to repeat them.

For months, the Israelis have been struggling to keep the lid on dozens of terrorist plots emanating from the Arabs of the “West Bank,” against a backdrop of threats to perpetrate an October 7-style invasion of Israeli towns in central Israel.

A few days ago, an enormous plot to detonate bombs on rush-hour buses in central Israel was foiled only when a number of these devices exploded in empty buses the previous evening — because when priming the bombs, the terrorist had confused 9 a.m. with 9 p.m.

Support for the Palestinians has knocked the West off its moral compass altogether. It’s not just that it’s signed up to a cause that’s profoundly anti-Jew. It’s because the West has come to believe that an evil cause represents conscience itself.

Islamism is a death cult. So is its “Palestinian” offshoot. But the West is unable to acknowledge this because it’s in the grip of a death cult of its own.

As I write in my new book, “The Builder’s Stone: How Jews and Christians Built the West — and Why Only They Can Save It,” the West has had a cultural death wish for decades. Undermining its core values, it no longer believes in objective truth. Everything is a matter of opinion. Feelings trump facts and evidence.

Inverting truth and lies, victim and aggressor, the West is unable to see the Palestinian cause for the evil that it is. And consumed by the belief that Western civilization is fundamentally bad, it refuses to acknowledge the Islamist threat not only to Israel but also to itself.

So as the West’s cultural elites undermine and hollow out their own civilization, the Islamist death cult is moving in for the kill — with the Palestinian Arabs creating the Trojan Horse of the Middle East.

It’s high time the West woke up to the bitter reality of the entire Palestinian cause, and to the way its own agenda of cultural self-loathing has softened it up for the triumph of its enemies.

Seth Mandel: Detoxing Gaza: The Problem Beyond Hamas

What is one to do with this information? The Bibases don’t just symbolize Hamas’s brutality, though Hamas was the reason the invasion happened and the party responsible for the demonic ceremony celebrating the dead children.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, in addition to participating in that ceremony and perhaps holding the captive Bibas family, not only joined the Oct. 7 pogrom but has taken the lead in shepherding anti-Zionism on campus, training participants in the pro-Hamas tentifada, and organizing a high-profile conference at which a Democratic member of Congress spoke. The PFLP and its front groups should be treated no differently from Hamas as part of any permanent cease-fire.

Hamas’s feats of terror would not be possible without Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which Hamas used as a decoy organization in its prewar deception scheme and which is Hamas’s most prominent Gaza-based ally in this war. Surely any policy applied to Hamas would be applied to PIJ and its members.

The same, presumably, would go for the Mujahideen group that claimed credit for the Bibas kidnapping, as well as the other groups represented in the grotesque Hamas-led ceremony. Which is to say: Every so-called resistance organization in Gaza must be disbanded, with no exceptions.

Finally, how does a sweeping policy toward institutions deal with civilians? The answer is, it isn’t just armed groups responsible for what happened on Oct. 7. Gaza’s government and armed forces led an invasion that opened the way for civilians to take part in the murder and looting spree.

How is it that the removal of parts of a fence can inspire civilians to cross into another territory and randomly murder, torture, plunder, and kidnap? The answer is that generations of Palestinians in Gaza have been brainwashed from birth to believe that that is a reasonable course of action toward Jews. And who brainwashed them? We can start with the UNRWA schools responsible for “educating” Palestinian children.

These schools quite famously teach the most demented Jew-hate one can imagine. The textbooks have been opened, the schoolchildren have told the world what they have learned. We don’t wonder what happens in an UNRWA school; we wonder how any country could possibly fund it, support it, defend its existence.

UNRWA is now being ordered to cease its operations in Israel and the territories. Gaza’s de-Nazification should encompass both its ideological institutions—of which UNRWA is one—and its institutions of violent governance. Dismantling Hamas is necessary, yes. But it would be far from sufficient if we want to give future generations of Gazans a chance at a life outside of a death cult.

Khaled Abu Toameh: Hamas's October 7 Massacre Is Part of Its Jihad to Destroy Israel

Some people in Israel are demanding that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu step down and agree to Hamas's demand to end the war in the Gaza Strip.... These Israelis fail to understand that the October 7 massacre is just another phase of the Islamists' Jihad (holy war) against Israel.

Since its violent, brutal takeover of the Gaza Strip in 2007, Hamas has done nothing to help the local residents. Instead of building hospitals, schools and economic projects, Hamas, with the help of Iran and Qatar, has devoted huge resources to manufacturing weapons, such as rockets and missiles, and building a massive network of tunnels throughout the Gaza Strip.

Hamas, in a document published shortly after the October 7 attack, openly admits that it is opposed to the presence of Jews in Israel. The document frankly admits that the conflict did not start as a result of the Holocaust, or when Israel declared independence in 1948, or on October 7, 2023, but 105 years ago, "including 30 years of British colonialism and 75 years of Zionist occupation." The document goes on to explain that Hamas "is a Palestinian Islamic national liberation and resistance movement. Its goal is to liberate Palestine and confront the Zionist project."

Hamas's 1988 charter emphasizes the importance of Jihad as the main means for the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) to achieve its goals...

Significantly, the charter quotes Hassan al-Banna, who founded the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in 1928, as saying: "Israel will arise and continue to exist until Islam abolishes it, as it abolished what went before." Hamas is the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.

US President Donald J. Trump would do well to designate the Muslim Brotherhood, the font of all the Islamic jihadist organizations, as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. Such an act would make it difficult for those countries that promote and finance jihadi terrorists to keep on doing so.

What happened on October 7 should be seen in the context of Qatar's, Iran's and Hamas's continuing Jihad. The massacre on October 7 was just another phase in the Islamist groups' efforts to eliminate Israel. After the October 7, massacres, the Qatari government media consistently praised the massacres, and weeks ago vowed more of them.

Anyone who believes that Hamas would abandon Jihad as a result of a ceasefire agreement is engaging in extreme self-deception. Hamas has not yet accomplished its mission of destroying Israel. Hamas's main goal, especially now, is to remain in power after the war.... Any deal that keeps Hamas in power would pave the way for the Islamist murderers, rapists and baby-killers to carry out still more massacres against Israelis.

Regrettably, there is no alternative to eradicating Hamas.

Three ridiculously antisemitic articles in Egyptian media on Sunday alone

This weekend saw at least three separate antisemitic articles in Egyptian media.

At Shorouk News, columnist Imad Al-Din Hussein spins an antisemitic conspiracy theory claiming that the three simultaneous bus explosions in Israel last week were a false flag meant to give an excuse for Israel to attack the West Bank. The "evidence" is that the only people arrested so far are Jews, and no one was injured.

Al Masry al Youm quotes Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris, who says that in Gaza, "the resistance knows very well that the occupation forces are heartless, brutal and usurping, and the Jews believe that they rule the whole world."

Yes, even a billionaire thinks Jews are too powerful.

Rosa el-Youssef Magazine has an article about Coptic beliefs and their supersessionism as decades-old lectures that were recently republished:

In Bishop Youannis’ lecture, he clearly said, “The current Israel has no relation to the Israel mentioned in the Bible, but rather it is Zionist gangs that represent a fascist, racist colonial movement that relies on aggression in its principles and uses violence to achieve its goals.” He explains, “Israel in the Bible has three meanings, the first is the name given to Jacob, son of Isaac, son of Abraham, and the second is a name given to the descendants of Jacob in the Old Testament, and the third is Israel, with its symbolic meaning, referring to the Christian Church, i.e. believers in Christ in the New Testament. Thus, ancient Israel in the Bible is distinguished from today’s racist, terrorist Israel, which has no support in the Bible. ...Christianity teaches that “The descendants of Abraham do not mean the physical descendants, but the spiritual descendants of Abraham, which are all believers in Christ. As for the eternal kingdom of David that they are striving to establish, the Jews understood the king in a literal, material way, while God meant by the kingdom the spiritual kingdom,” Anba Youannis confirms that Israel “has ended as a religion, as Christianity believes that the Torah was an incomplete book that Christianity completed with its teachings and beliefs contained in the New Testament. Accordingly, there is no Judaism as a religion now, and consequently there is no Israel. ...The Jewish nation has ended and no longer exists before God because it is under divine wrath. As long as the Jews are now under God’s wrath and the curse has not ended, they have no recognized entity before God, and all their efforts are nothing but a human attempt destined for certain failure, and God’s wrath will not be turned away from them. unless they realize their mistake and sin in rejecting Christ...

This is mainstream thinking in all Palestinian and Middle East churches, which is one reason Christians in the Middle East don't look at Jews as fellow sufferers under Muslim rule but as worse than their Muslim oppressors.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

Where In The World Is Released Terrorist Abu Warda Supposed To Be--And Why Does It Matter? (Daled Amos)

By Daled Amos

Israel has announced that it is pausing the release of Palestinian Arab terrorists in exchange for Israeli hostages. Specifically, Israel will stop releasing the prisoners until Hamas stops staging “ceremonies that humiliate our hostages."

This follows the condemnation by the UN human rights chief, Volker Turk last week:

The parading of bodies in the manner seen this morning is abhorrent and cruel and flies in the face of international law.

But this past Thursday, when the remains of the Bibas babies were paraded around in coffins, another apparent violation by Hamas was mentioned in passing.

In the middle of an article describing Hamas's parade, the Wall Street Journal notes:

Amid the crowds were some Palestinians recently released by Israel in the cease-fire deal who, according to the terms of the agreement, were supposed to be exiled from Gaza. Those spotted in the crowds included Mohammed Abu Warda, who was sentenced for planning a 1996 bus bombing that killed more than 40 Israelis.

Haaretz describes Abu Warda in more detail:

Mohammad Abu Warda, who was sentenced to 48 life terms for his role in two terror bombings on Jerusalem's bus line 18 in 1996, which killed 45 people. In court, he declared, "The struggle of our people against you will never end. On the contrary, we will stand firm and determined until you leave our land." At the time, the military prosecutor described him as "a mass murderer standing before the court today."

While the Wall Street Journal believed he was supposed to be exiled from Gaza, when Abu Warda spoke with Al Araby, the interviewer told him very matter-of-factly, "Today, you are being sent to Khan Yunis"-- in Gaza.

But unlike either the Journal or Al Araby, Haaretz was not sure where Abu Warda was supposed to be deported to--and so reported that he was to be exiled to either Egypt or Gaza.

Abu Warda's appearance in Gaza was also confirmed on X. Abu Warda wasn't hiding. On the contrary, he gave an interview. According to the Times of Israel, he made it very clear that Hamas terror attacks would continue “until we reach liberation of [Jerusalem] and all our lands.”

Was Abu Warda exiled to Gaza? That would seem unlikely. According to Haaretz, he was sentenced to a total of 48 life terms, making Abu Warda "the prisoner with the most Israeli murder convictions among those being released." Israel is hardly likely to want such a prominent terrorist back in Gaza where he would serve as an inspiration to wannabe terrorists.

But if Israel's intent was for Abu Warda to be exiled to Egypt, why is he in Gaza? Is Hamas again violating the cease-fire?

According to the Times of Israel, Egypt--which was one of the countries involved in formulating the terms of the cease-fire--is not cooperating with its implementation:

According to the Kan broadcaster, Egypt refused to grant entry to Abu Warda and 19 other released security prisoners and has demanded that other prisoners it has already taken in be deported elsewhere before it will accept new prisoners.

Hamas claims initial agreements have been received from Algeria, Indonesia, Malaysia and Qatar to accept released Palestinian prisoners, but this has not yet been implemented, Kan reported.

Theoretically, this terrorist could end up in Gaza, Egypt, Algeria, Indonesia, Malaysia, or Qatar. But barring the implementation of a plan for Gaza that rids it of Hamas, Gaza does seem to be his most likely destination.

Where he can plan his next mass murder attack.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

By Forest Rain

"I could never strangle a baby!"

Many around the world began to grasp the depth of Gazan depravity when it was revealed that baby Kfir Bibas, just 10 months old, and his four-year-old brother Ariel were brutally murdered by Gazans (not just Hamas) while being held hostage in Gaza sometime in November 2023. The Bibas children were taken alive, along with their mother Shiri, during the “Al Aqsa Flood” invasion of Israel on October 7, 2023.

Other children—and even babies—were slaughtered in the attack. Other mothers were taken hostage and forced to watch their children suffer. Other fathers lived through the devastation of being unable to protect their families. But the Bibas family's horror was caught on camera. We saw it happen—live, in living color.

The depravity Gazans unleashed on Israel was not new. We have witnessed it before: the cold-blooded murder of babies, the rape of women, the beheading of men, people torn apart with bare hands. What set this apart was the magnitude—and the location: Israeli kibbutzim within the pre-1967 borders.

This horror should not have been a surprise. But for many, the kidnapping, murder, and mutilation of the Bibas children was an ice-cold bucket of water, shocking them awake to the evil on Israel’s borders.

And that awareness is a good thing. To address reality, we must first recognize it.

For decades, we all pretended that Arabs didn’t really mean what they said when they declared their intent to wipe Israel off the map. But Hamas, Fatah, Gaza, and the Palestinian Authority have always been clear. Their charters, their education systems, their religious institutions—every aspect of their society is not built to uplift themselves but to destroy the Jewish state. Their goal is to turn Israel into “Palestine.”

Now, many of those recently awakened to the depth of this depravity have realized that this threat to Jewish life cannot be allowed to continue. The existential threat to Israel is not just a threat to Jews—it is a threat to Christians, to the Western world, to civilization itself.

And that awareness is a good thing. To address reality, we must first recognize it.

This understanding has led many to declare that Gaza—Hamas—is Amalek. That Amalek must be destroyed.

With this, I agree.

But some take it further, arguing that Gaza and Hamas are not human—that they are a mutation, a different species, something we could never be.

With this, I vehemently disagree.

That statement makes me angry. Really angry.

I had to think hard to understand why. And then it hit me: because to address reality, we must recognize it. And getting this wrong puts our lives in danger. I have had enough hostage-taking and brutal terrorism for a lifetime. We cannot live like this anymore.

Who Was Amalek?

Amalek originates from Esau, the twin brother of Jacob. According to Genesis 36:12, Amalek was the grandson of Esau through his son Eliphaz and a concubine named Timna. This makes him a direct descendant of Isaac and Abraham, just like Jacob (Israel).

The Amalekites first attacked the Israelites in Exodus 17:8-16, striking the weak and weary as they fled Egypt. Because of this cowardly, unprovoked evil, the Torah commands Israel to remember Amalek and wipe out his memory. Amalek represents the embodiment of pure evil—the enemy that targets the defenseless and seeks the destruction of the Jewish people.

Since then, genocidal Jew-hatred has been understood as a recurring manifestation of Amalek. Haman, the Nazis, Hamas—all are embodiments of this spirit of Amalek.

At the same time, Jews and Arabs share a common ancestor: Abraham. The Jewish people descend from Jacob (Israel), while Arabs trace their lineage to Ishmael, the son of Abraham and Hagar. Meanwhile, Amalek comes from Esau, Jacob’s brother. Whether tracing from Esau or Ishmael, both Jews and Arabs ultimately come from the same grandfather.

Evil Is a Choice

The Torah teaches that all people are created in the image of God. It explains our shared ancestry, but it also makes something else very clear: some people choose evil.

Gaza’s culture has created an evil society—one that glorifies death, thrives on violence, and is ruled by fear. This cannot be fixed. Like Amalek, it must be wiped out.

But that is not to say that Gazans are inherently different from birth. They are not a genetic mutation.

If any of us were raised in their society—exposed to their education, media, and religious indoctrination—we would be just like them.

It is comforting to believe otherwise. Comforting to think that we are superior by nature, that we could never fall to such depravity. Comforting to believe that we could never strangle a baby.

Who wants to wrap their mind around that horrible, revolting image? But that false comfort blinds us to the true source of danger.

The difference between us and them is not in individual human potential. The difference is in society, values, and culture.

We are not superior as individuals. But we ARE superior.

We are superior because our culture is superior.

They do not believe they are doing evil. They believe they are doing good. That is a hard thought to swallow, isn’t it?

We have a different understanding of good and evil because, even those of us who are not religious live by the laws and values of the Torah.

We choose life—they choose death.

We build—they destroy.

That is what makes us different. That is why we cannot become like them. That is why we couldn’t strangle a baby.

But if we lived in the society of Amalek—we could.

And only if we understand this can we make the changes necessary for survival.

Because the society of Amalek cannot be allowed to live. If it does, we won’t.