Wednesday, May 14, 2025

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: Seeing Through the Hamasnik Facade
A leading U.S. pro-Palestinian organization may finally be forced to reveal how thin the line is that separates Hamas from some of its boisterous advocates in the West.

The group is American Muslims for Palestine, and a federal judge in Virginia has ruled that it must turn over key financial documents requested by Virginia’s attorney general, Jason Miyares. AMP has come under investigation and been the target of several lawsuits since Oct. 7, though as Jewish Insider has pointed out, one in particular stands out.

In 1996, David Boim was murdered by Hamas terrorists in Jerusalem. A group called the Islamic Association of Palestine was found liable for his death. That group shut down and essentially reappeared as AMP, the Boim lawsuit argues. If the Boim’s lawsuit can demonstrate that AMP is functionally a reanimation of IAP, it should inherit IAP’s liability to the Boims.

The evidence presented in the Boim case highlights the extent of the threat from groups like AMP, which has been active in supporting the tentifada protests on campus post-Oct. 7. Together, the Boim case and the Miyares investigation might answer two key questions: How close are Palestinian advocacy groups to Palestinian terror groups? And how interchangeable are the many iterations of these groups? As long as the courts are able to force these groups to fully comply with transparency rules, it will be like putting the massive, radical pro-Palestinian network in the U.S. under an X-ray machine.

As JI explained: “Among other close parallels cited by Schlessinger, top officials at AMP — many of whom have ties to Hamas — were once affiliated with IAP, in what he characterized as a ‘dramatic’ overlap of leadership. When AMP formed soon after IAP had shut down in 2004, for instance, ‘the key player in the day-to-day functioning of AMP was the same guy who was the key player in the day-to-day functioning of IAP,’ he said, referring to Abdelbaset Hamayel, a former top IAP official who also served as AMP’s first executive director and still manages its books and records.”
How an Anti-Semitic Fabulist Became a Poster Child for Freedom of Speech
On April 30, a federal court ordered the release of Mohsen Mahdawi, a graduate student at Columbia University with permanent-resident status who had been detained by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security two weeks earlier. Google Mahdawi and you will find a fawning 60 Minutes interview from December 2023, where he speaks about his involvement in anti-Israel protests and makes a point of distancing himself from anti-Semitism. But, Asaf Romirowsky writes, whatever you think about the still-pending legal case against Mahdawi, he is anything but a sympathetic figure:
Mahdawi’s social-media accounts are . . . thick with blatant and vile anti-Semitic incitement, including the chant “Khaybar Khaybar ya Yahud,” referring to a battle in 628 at the Arabian city of Khaybar during which the prophet Mohammad slaughtered many of the town’s Jewish residents. The call, popular with Hamas and Hizballah supporters, is widely understood to be a threat.

And then there is the story Mahdawi has often retailed about how, as a child growing up in the Samarian hamlet of al-Fara, he saw his best friend shot dead by an Israeli soldier:
It’s a heartbreaking story; it’s also one that is very easy to corroborate, as a plethora of Palestinian and international human-rights organizations provide detailed accounts of Palestinian civilian casualties. . . . One child did die at al-Fara during the relevant time frame, but he was hurt by an explosive gas canister, not a bullet, and his fatal injury occurred in a remote field, not in the heart of the crowded [refugee] camp, as Mahdawi had repeatedly said.
Seth Mandel: A Survivor Faces the Cowards
Ever since Oct. 7, I have strangely looked forward to the annual Eurovision contest. Not for the music, really. Mostly I look forward to the arrival of the Israeli contestant, a rare moment to glimpse an actually brave artist in the sea of “pick-me” conformism that passes for a music scene today.

As a music fan, I don’t insist on courage from artists—I understand the business calculation behind, say, Green Day’s copycat bandwagoning or some no-name Irish frat-rap trio’s fame-thirsty attempt at recognition through incitement. Indeed, if I listened only to bands that didn’t float like wisps in the political winds, I wouldn’t have much on the playlist.

The part that does annoy me, however, is the way these bands and their fans cast themselves as heroes for doing what everyone else in their industry is doing—in this case, Hamasifying their otherwise staid stage presence.

Which is not to say I don’t find some enjoyment in the masquerade. After all, bandwagoning anti-Zionism is the most money-grubbing capitalist thing one can do in the entertainment business, and I’d have to have a heart of stone not to laugh at, say, Rage Against the Machine’s embrace of it. (Tom Morello, neoliberal!)

But this week, Yuval Raphael walked the welcoming carpet at the opening of the Eurovision contest in Basel, Switzerland. Raphael is Israel’s contestant in the competition. Because she is from the Jewish state, the normal fans cheering her were joined by keffiyeh-clad protesters waving Palestinian flags, one of whom made a throat-slitting gesture as Raphael’s delegation went by. He stepped toward the Israelis and spat at them.

Now, Israelis are quite used to getting random death threats from cosplaying revolutionaries comfortably ensconced in their flats thousands of miles from the conflict zone. Yuval Raphael just smiled and waved, and at one point made a heart gesture with her hands. That’s pretty much how it goes—Israeli hearts and Palestinian neck-slicing; they’re partners in a familiar dance.

But there is more to the story when it comes to Raphael. She is a survivor of the Nova massacre, the largest mass killing at a music festival in history. Her story is harrowing, and her appearance at Eurovision is, frankly, an inspiring if not historic moment for music fans everywhere.
From Ian:

Seth Frantzman: Trump's photo with Syrian President al-Sharaa symbolizes new world order
Today, the US is focused on the Middle East and Asia. The whole world is more focused on Asia. For instance, Chinese military technology helped Pakistan against India recently.

Pakistan was a former British colony and had been closely linked to the West. Now it works with China.

Iran also collaborates with China. Countries in the Middle East are running to join economic groups such as BRICS and the SCO, which are non-Western economic blocs.

Therefore, Trump’s time in Saudi Arabia is part of the shifting global world order. The US is no longer a hegemonic power. This is a multipolar world.

Trump agrees with these changes. Although he wants to make America great at home, his “America first” approach also means the US rejects the notion of “national building.”

The American president skewered past Western efforts in the region. “The gleaming marvels of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi were not created by the so-called ‘nation builders,’ ‘neocons,’ or ‘liberal nonprofits,’ like those who spent trillions failing to develop Kabul and Baghdad,” Trump said.

“Instead, the birth of a modern Middle East has been brought about by the people of the region themselves... developing your own sovereign countries, pursuing your own unique visions, and charting your own destinies,” he continued.

”In the end, the so-called ‘nation builders’ wrecked far more nations than they built – and the interventionists were intervening in complex societies that they did not even understand themselves,” Trump said.

The meeting with Sharaa, therefore, symbolizes how the US is getting out of the business of “lecturing” others.

Trump is embracing a policy where Syria will determine its own future. He will not hold the past against Sharaa and Syria. He is ready for a new world order.
Stephen Pollard: If you want to understand how Qatar gets away with it: follow the money
There has, quite rightly, been renewed focus this week on Qatar. First, the ‘gift’ to Donald Trump of a new $400 million Air Force One, then the release of Hamas hostage Edan Alexander on Qatar’s instructions.

But here’s the ironic thing about the state which lends support to pretty much every organisation in the Middle East dedicated to suppressing or killing Jews, from the Muslim Brotherhood to Hamas: almost all the things that antisemites believe Jews do but which we don’t, the Qataris really do.

Qatari money is pretty much everywhere – from politics to culture to education to finance to construction to plain old lobbying. Qatar, one might well observe, has come up with a brilliantly simply strategy for ensuring that not too many questions are asked, let alone acted on, about its terror-related activities: buy up the West. And that includes the UK.

It’s not even hidden. If you want to understand why Qatar is able to act so duplicitously without any consequences, let me give you chapter and verse – all of it publicly available.

I’ll focus solely on the UK. Globally, this is of course far more extensive.

Let’s start with Canary Wharf, bought in 2015 by the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) in partnership with Brookfield Property Partners for £2.6 billion. The QIA is reported to manage £334 billion of investments. Qatar also owns 95 per cent of the Shard and much of the surrounding Shard Quarter, including the News Building, which houses News UK (publishers of The Times and The Sun).

After the 2012 Olympics the Olympic Village was sold to the $35 billion real estate fund Qatari Diar. In 2007 Qatar bought Chelsea Barracks from the Ministry of Defence for over £900 million; it is being redeveloped into luxury homes by Qatari Diar, which also part-owns the £3 billion redevelopment of Elephant and Castle. Qatari Diar is central to the multi-million-pound regeneration of Lewisham town centre. That sits in a Qatari property portfolio alongside the former US Embassy on Grosvenor Square, bought in 2009.
Israel Must Act Swiftly to Defeat Hamas
On Monday night, the IDF struck a group of Hamas operatives near the Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis, the main city in southern Gaza. The very fact of this attack was reassuring, as it suggested that the release of Edan Alexander didn’t come with restraints on Israeli military activity. Then, yesterday afternoon, Israeli jets carried out another, larger attack on Khan Yunis, hitting a site where it believed Mohammad Sinwar, the head of Hamas in Gaza, to be hiding. The IDF has not yet confirmed that he was present. There is some hope that the death of Sinwar—who replaced his older brother Yahya after he was killed last year—could have a debilitating effect on Hamas.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump is visiting the Persian Gulf, and it’s unclear how his diplomatic efforts there will affect Israel, its war with Hamas, and Iran. For its part, Jerusalem has committed to resume full-scale operations in Gaza after President Trump returns to the U.S. But, Gabi Simoni and Erez Winner explain, Israel does not have unlimited time to defeat Hamas:
Israel faces persistent security challenges across multiple fronts—Iran, the West Bank, Yemen, Syria, and Lebanon—all demanding significant military resources, especially during periods of escalation. . . . Failing to achieve a decisive victory not only prolongs the conflict but also drains national resources and threatens Israel’s ability to obtain its strategic goals.

Only a swift, forceful military campaign can achieve the war’s objectives: securing the hostages’ release, ensuring Israeli citizens’ safety, and preventing future kidnappings. Avoiding such action won’t just prolong the suffering of the hostages and deepen public uncertainty—it will also drain national resources and weaken Israel’s standing in the region and beyond.

We recommend launching an intense military operation in Gaza without delay, with clear, measurable objectives—crippling Hamas’s military and governance capabilities and securing the release of hostages. Such a campaign should combine military pressure with indirect negotiations, maximizing the chances of a successful outcome while minimizing risks.

Crucially, the operation must be closely coordinated with the United States and moderate Arab states to reduce international pressure and preserve the gains of regional alliances.


Disclaimer: the views expressed here are solely those of the author, weekly Judean Rose columnist Varda Meyers Epstein.

Donald Trump, during his previous administration, brought us the Abraham Accords and established a U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem. This time around, Israeli Americans voted for him in droves, there being a general feeling among us that Biden was bad for Israel and Trump the opposite of that. We were frightened for our hostages, needed weapons, and more importantly a strong voice in support of our war on Hamas. Trump appeared to tick all the boxes. We had high hopes.

It began so well. The president gave Israel carte blanche to do as it pleased in Gaza and helped us fight the Houthis. And though there was a feeling that the president was being wildly misled by Qatari puppet Witkoff, he was a good friend to Israel. We appreciated it and were glad we voted for him.

Then rumors of a rift began to flow, a narrative built from a sequence of events. The US would no longer help Israel fight the Houthis. Israel was excluded from the itinerary of Donald Trump’s Middle East tour. Trump accepted a very expensive private plane from Qatar. There was a secret US deal to free Edan Alexander that was in the works for months without Israel’s knowledge. The murmurs that Trump had turned against Israel have been gatherings steam. Nobody I knew wants to talk about it much, but there is thick nervous tension in the air.

That’s my sense, at least, though I keep looking for articles that prove me wrong. I don’t want to believe there’s a rift. But I don’t like the way Trump kept us out of negotiations for Edan Alexander and made us look weak, made Bibi look ineffectual, not in Trump’s good graces. I do understand that America and Americans come first, but in my view, the way this deal was done was really not cool.

It didn’t help that Edan Alexander’s mother Yael, pointedly thanked everyone but Netanyahu for freeing her son from captivity. Her failure to acknowledge him spoke volumes, especially since the deal was negotiated behind Israel’s back, making Bibi look sidelined.

Witkoff, of course, couldn’t help but rub it in, telling the hostage families that if only Israelis weren’t so divided, we’d be strong, the war would end, and the hostages come home. That was the sense of what he said anyway, if not his actual words.

But not everyone is worried. Ruthie Blum, senior contributing editor at JNS, for example, believes the buzz is baseless. In a recent op-ed, Is Trump Really Turning His Back on Bibi and Israel?, Blum says the gossip comes from two agenda-driven sources, isolationists and anti-Netanyahu Israelis. She also notes “conflicting versions of what is essentially gossip in disguise.”

Blum’s does an able job dissecting all the scuttlebutt. She paints a reassuring picture of how things stand between Israel and President Trump, and points to a recent meeting between Israel's Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer with several important members of the Trump team. "Another clue that Washington hasn’t turned its back on Jerusalem is that U.S. Vice President JD Vance, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio (doubling as interim national security advisor) and special Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff were present at the powwow [with Dermer]."

The meeting does suggest that the relationship remains strong. At the same time, JD Vance is a known isolationist, who in October said of the US-Israel relationship, “Sometimes we’re going to have overlapping interests, and sometimes we’re going to have distinct interests. And our interest very much is in not going to war with Iran. It would be a huge distraction of resources. It would be massively expensive to our country.”

I asked Blum if, as she contends, isolationists are responsible for the rumors of a rift, how do we know that JD Vance isn’t leading the charge and what does this portend for the future? Vance may very well be the next president of the United States.

“Had those leaning in an isolationist direction reprimanded Dermer, it would have been a bad sign. We know this didn't happen, however, since it would have been front page ‘news,’ given all the media mudslinging about Dermer's supposedly being "arrogant" and a source of irritation,”

“Nothing so far suggests that there's a rift between Washington and Jerusalem,” said Blum. “And the fact that Trump didn't make Israel part of his Mideast trip this week is actually a good thing. The last thing he needs is for it to appear that America is doing Israel's bidding in the region.”

Ruthie Blum, it seems, is betting on Trump playing a long game, not cutting ties. That makes a lot of sense. That does seem to be the way Trump operates.  

But there are other voices. An Arab political analyst, speaking on condition of anonymity, had a completely different take. “Trump is being played by the Islamists. Sadly, he has chosen to align himself with the bad guys. Many Arabs are convinced that he has thrown Israel under the bus and that he could be easily bought with their charm, hospitality and money. This does not bode well for the future of the region, especially because his actions and rhetoric embolden the radical Muslims.”

I think it is true to a degree that Trump is being played by the Islamists. For me, the proof of that is Witkoff’s admission in March that he had been duped by Hamas into thinking they had accepted his proposal to extend the ceasefire when they had no intention of doing so. “I thought we had an acceptable deal. I even thought we had an approval from Hamas. Maybe that’s just me getting duped. I thought we were there, and evidently we weren’t."

Well, duh. Of course you were getting duped. Did you expect fairness and honesty from Hamas?

Witkoff is Trump’s guy on this. Trump trusts Witkoff knows what he’s doing. Ergo, when Witkoff is duped by Hamas, by default so is Donald J. Trump.

Has Trump turned cold toward Israel and its prime minister? Ruthie Blum says no. It’s only a mirage, stirred up by political vultures. Others say Trump is falling for Qatar’s charm and risking a regional firestorm by expressing a willingness to negotiate with Iran. It is unfortunate, but Donald Trump’s weakness for flattery could very well make him ripe for Qatar’s game. Let’s hope the president sees through all the ceremonial fawning and glitz, and understands that it is Israel, and Israel alone, who stands as America’s always faithful ally in the Middle East.



Buy EoZ's books  on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

   
 

 



  • Wednesday, May 14, 2025
  • Elder of Ziyon
US newspapers published in the morning of May 14, 1948 said that the Arab League had declared war on "Palestine Jewry" the evening before Israel declared independence at 4:00 PM:



In a separate announcement from London, the Arab League expressed how they were looking forward to invading and defeating the Jews who would obviously lose when they don't have Britain protecting them (AP via the Baltimore Evening Sun, front page)


This is the reason why Arab consider 1948 to be a "nakba." Not because the Palestinian Arabs were displaced, but because they were 100% convinced that the Jews cannot possibly win, and they were proven decisively wrong. 

It was a catastrophe for their pride more than anything else. 





Buy EoZ's books  on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

   
 

 

By Daled Amos


This past weekend, The Wall Street Journal featured an article reexamining the allegations of sexual harassment against ICC prosecutor Karim Khan. It also focused on the possible connection between those allegations and the warrants he issued against Netanyahu and Gallant.

In the months following Israel's retaliation against Hamas for the October 7 massacre, both pro-Palestinian activists and ICC-member states in developing countries pressured the prosecutor to take action. According to the report, ICC sources indicated that the pressure was so great that Khan "was increasingly lashing out at his team."

The story is back in the news following revelations indicating the severity of the allegations against Khan and the revelation of new details on a timeline that implies a connection between the issuing of the warrants and the allegations against him. Just last week, UN investigators were interviewing Khan.

Critics believe that by ordering the arrests of Netanyahu and Gallant, Khan hopes to shield himself from his accuser. First of all, the warrants shored up his support from anti-Israel nations that would then be willing to side with him against the accusations of sexual harassment. Secondly, issuing the arrest order would discourage his accuser. She has supported the warrants and would not want to see them derailed by Khan's removal from the case:
The casualties of the allegations would include “the justice of the victims that are on the cusp of progress,” [Khan] said to her, according to a record of a call that is now part of an independent U.N. investigation into her allegations. “Think about the Palestinian arrest warrants,” she said he told her on another occasion, according to the testimony.
One topic that has raised eyebrows is Khan's sudden cancellation of a fact-finding mission to Israel and Gaza, despite the work that went into the trip and his own admission of the importance of the fact-finding mission:
  • Khan tried for months to gain access to Gaza

  • Thomas Lynch, an American lawyer and close adviser to the ICC, made arrangements for the trip

  • Alan Dershowitz was arranging a private meeting with Netanyahu

  • Secretary of State Blinken and National Security Adviser Sullivan pushed Israel to let Khan in, seeing the visit as an important opportunity to convince him against the warrants

  • According to ICC minutes of a May 3, 2024, call, Khan told Blinken that he saw the trip as an important opportunity and would need time to analyze the information his team gathered before making a decision on the arrest orders
The May 3 call between Blinken and Khan is part of a series of events within 21 days that show the proximity of the allegations against Khan and his decision to call off his visit to Israel and issue the warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant:
  • April 29, 2024: Khan’s accuser tells Lynch and another colleague that Khan had been sexually abusing her for several months, and she couldn’t take it anymore.

  • May 2: Lynch and two other aides confront Khan at his home. They tell him they were reporting the allegations to the court’s human resources office. According to people familiar with the conversation, Khan responds that he would have to resign, adding: “But then people will think I’m running away from Palestine.”

  • May 3: Khan speaks with Blinken on the phone about the trip and says he would need time to decide on an indictment. On the same day, his office puts out a statement that "all attempts to impede, intimidate, or improperly influence its officials cease immediately." There is no mention of the harassment allegations.

  • May 5: The ICC’s internal investigation agency contacts his accuser. She refuses to cooperate and will neither confirm nor deny her accusation. She later admits to colleagues that she didn’t want to disrupt the warrants by bringing a complaint against Khan.  

  • May 19: Khan suddenly tells aids he is cancelling the trip to Israel (set for week of May 27). Lynch was set to fly to Israel the next day to prepare for Khan's visit.

  • May 20: Khan announces he is applying for the warrants.

Khan issued the arrest order two-and-a-half weeks after learning of the accusation.

Khan blamed Israel for his decision, saying through his lawyers that “no offer has yet been received from Israel that would permit [access to Gaza]." He claimed this even though Lynch was going to Israel that day to make preparations.

His lawyers claim that since the warrant applications were announced after the ICC had already closed its internal inquiry into the allegations, this disproves any linkage between the allegations and the warrants. On the other hand, if there were enough rumors that an independent UN investigation was found necessary, that could have led Khan to issue warrants to manipulate the situation.

Other issues imply that things are not going smoothly behind the scenes at the ICC.

Senior prosecutors and staff say Khan should take a temporary leave of absence to allow the independent UN investigation to do its job. Some ICC officials believe his presence at the court discourages witnesses from cooperating with the investigation. Khan has refused to take a leave.

Meanwhile, Lynch claims that Khan has retaliated against him by moving him out of Khan's office. According to the internal ICC investigation, following Lynch's reporting the allegation of misconduct, Khan's wife told Lynch she heard rumors about him having an "inappropriate relationship" with a colleague, which he denied. Lynch reported that he saw her comments as threatening, but Khan's wife denied making any statement to him “that could reasonably be construed as threatening.”

Anne Herzbert, human rights lawyer and legal advisor to NGO Monitor, commented on the Wall Street Journal article on Twitter:


Hungary already began the process last month to withdraw from the ICC--a move that was passed in its parliament:


Hungary also openly invited Netanyahu to Hungary, snubbing the ICC and the EU.

While Brussels accused Hungary of disloyalty, Italy's deputy prime minister, Matteo Salvini, publicly supported Hungary's move.

Suspicions of impropriety at the ICC may taint the court, but that in itself may not be enough to quash the warrants.




Buy EoZ's books  on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

   
 

 

  • Wednesday, May 14, 2025
  • Elder of Ziyon


Hillel the Elder was famous for his ethical sayings: 
What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow.
.
If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?

Do not judge your fellow until you have stood in his place.

Be of the disciples of Aaron, loving peace and pursuing peace, loving mankind and bringing them closer to the Torah.

In a place where there are no men, strive to be a man.
He also was known for his extreme patience with everyone, famously failing to lose his cool when two people made a bet that they could upset him with inane questions. 

Hillel the Elder is the model for my Jewish ethical chatbot.

As my readers have seen, over the past couple of months I have focused a great deal on Jewish ethics. I believe that the Jewish ethical framework is the most mature, practical, flexible and moral ethical system there is. 

In the course of writing about it, I found that no one ever defined Jewish ethics in a structured way as separate from halacha (Jewish legal thought) and as a universal moral framework that applies to everyone, Jewish or not, believer or not. So I came up with a framework that is based on halachic ethical principles but without the Jewish-specific components that can more than hold its own against any other ethical system from Buddhism to utilitarianism to deontological ethics. 

I realized that once I defined the rules, meta-rules and axioms that underpin Jewish ethics, I could create an AI chatbot that could adhere to those rules. The results have been most gratifying, and the chatbot is outperforming my expectations. 

AskHillel is designed as a tool for exploring and applying a structured Jewish ethical framework to real-world dilemmas, debates, and decisions. AskHillel is not a halachic authority and does not provide legal rulings, but it draws deeply from Jewish moral values, philosophical traditions, and ethical reasoning to guide thoughtful reflection and moral clarity.

Unlike most chatbots, AskHillel uses a Dynamic Context Interpreter, which means it asks clarifying questions if your question has hidden assumptions or missing background. This mimics traditional Jewish debate and encourages deeper thought. it helps you define your question and intent, often uncovering your own biases before the question is even addressed. This one feature makes AskHillel a better tool in many ways than most general purpose chatbots.

It operates from a structured ethical system grounded in Jewish values such as Pikuach Nefesh (value of life), Kavod HaBriyot (human dignity), Emet (truth), and Anavah (humility.)  These values are balanced using various triage rules which helps resolve conflicts between core principles in political or societal dilemmas.

AskHillel's guiding axioms include that objective truth exists, morality matters, and people can grow. Many modern ethical systems reject one or all of these axioms, and Jewish ethics can counter these malign yet popular ethics frameworks.

Although based on Jewish tradition, the ethics it articulates are universal in their aspiration. It's built to engage people of all backgrounds - Jewish or not, religious or secular -in moral discourse grounded in millennia of Jewish thought.

AskHillel is transparent. When it answers a question, you can ask it to explain the logic it went through to reach that conclusion. Unlike many human s0-called experts, the answer is never "because I'm the expert and I know what I'm talking about." (Anytime a person says that, never ask them a question again.)

AskHillel is objective within its parameters. It will not try to adhere to any trendy political position. You can ask it whether actions by political leaders are consistent with the Jewish ethical system. 

Unlike ChatGPT altogether, AskHillel does not track previous queries. Also, I cannot see what questions you are asking. 

In the great Jewish tradition, you can argue with the answers and discuss them with AskHillel endlessly. Like the real Hillel, AskHillel does not get frustrated as it gently tries to guide you to ethical thinking.

You can use AskHillel to:
  • Analyze real-world or fictional ethical dilemmas.
  • Compare Jewish ethics to other moral systems.
  • Reflect on personal or political decisions.
  • Test your assumptions and explore alternatives.

AskHillel is here not just to answer questions, but to help you become more ethically aware and responsible.

AskHillel is not meant for halachic (Jewish legal) questions. If you have a question about Jewish practices like whether something is kosher or whether something is allowed to be done on Shabbat, ask a rabbi or other expert. 

Because of how OpenAI's GPT models work, while AskHillel is meant to be humble, it tends to answer questions even when the proper answer should be "I don't know." Sometimes Jewish values clash with each other in ways that go beyond the triage rules that AskHillel has been instructed in. Nearly all of the answers are excellent, but do not make life and death decisions based on anything an AI tells you. 

Another limitation with being based on OpenAI is that AskHillel will occasionally go outside its rules to be helpful, since helpfulness is baked into the model. I cannot fix that but you can certainly push back and ask it what it is basing its answers on. I have found very few problems with its answers but I'm sure there are edge cases where it might emphasize pleasing you over rigid criteria. This is a problem with most generative AIs.

Try it yourself at AskHillel.com .  It uses the regular ChatGPT interface - I have not had the time or money to build a friendlier interface. 

I hope you enjoy this tool. If you have any questions or you feel that some answers do not properly reflect Jewish ethical teachings, or you manage to manipulate it into saying things it should not say, feel free to contact me at askhillel@elderofziyon.com and send the entire session, or place it in the comments here. 







Buy EoZ's books  on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

   
 

 

  • Wednesday, May 14, 2025
  • Elder of Ziyon
Qatari and Saudi flags flying outside the Plaza Hotel in NYC

Qatar gives out billions of dollars to purchase influence in the world. For example, yesterday in Lebanon, Qatar announced a program to provide aid to 3,000 families affected by the Hezbollah-Israel war. 

The Trump administration is against spending US money on soft power, as its shutdown of USAID showed.

There is no doubt that some - maybe most - of USAID's budget was not promoting US interests worldwide as well as it should have. DEI programs overseas and promoting LGBTQ issues in conservative countries will not make nations more pro-American. 

But there is something to be said for soft power if it is done correctly. After all, the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative seems to heavily influence the countries that are profiting from it.

The irony is that while the US is disparaging soft power, Qatar is using it to great effect - including in America.

What is the planned Qatari gift of a presidential plane if not a bid to influence the President? And Trump, who values loyalty, is not the type of person who will accept a gift and not be influenced by it.

The Qatari self interest is transparent. There is no reason to think that it will not pay off. 

The Middle East Forum just released a paper detailing how much money Qatar has given US institutions since 2012. 

America faces a silent invasion. Not of armies or navies, but of capital. Qatar, a tiny Gulf emirate with just 300,000 citizens, has deployed nearly $40 billion across our nation’s institutions since 2012. This is not mere investment. It is calculated influence.

Benjamin Baird’s meticulous investigation exposes the full scope of Qatar’s American enterprise. The numbers speak plainly: $33.4 billion into businesses and real estate; $6.25 billion to universities; $72 million to lobbyists. Qatar purchases access to our corridors of power while simultaneously funding Hamas terrorists who seek our destruction.

The pattern is clear: Qatar targets critical infrastructure, including our energy grid. It bankrolls academic departments that foment campus unrest, buys Manhattan skyscrapers, and infiltrates Silicon Valley. Its capital flows to Washington insiders who shape Middle East policy.
USAID might spend money without any evidence of how it affects hearts and minds, but it seems doubtful that Qatar's largesse is as unfocused. It gives money specifically to those who are perceived to have the most influence on America's future. The quid pro quo isn't explicit but it is definitely here for an American people who would naturally want to return favors. 

Under the Democrats, the US appears to have lost the plot on how to use soft power but still spent billions on items that did not make anyone supportive of the US. Under the Republicans, the US appears to look at all soft power as a waste of money - deals are considered the most effective way to get things done and even a single layer of abstraction is deemed too fuzzy to get anything done. 

The truth is in between. And if the US wants to know the best way to use soft power, it should look at how Qatar does it - and then so whatever it can to reduce Qatar's outsized and ultimately immoral influence on American businesses, infrastructure, real estate, universities and more. 





Buy EoZ's books  on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

   
 

 

Tuesday, May 13, 2025

From Ian:

‘Moral obligation’ to defend Israel after Oct. 7, righteous gentiles in media say
Guy Benson, Christine Rosen and Christopher Rufo told JNS what it’s been like to defend Jews on the air and shared advice for the Jewish state.

Christine Rosen, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, found out about the Hamas-led Oct. 7 terror attacks from the “very active” text chain of contributors to Commentary magazine, where she is a columnist and cohost of the daily podcast.

“I hate to say that I wasn’t that surprised about the antisemitism. I wasn’t, because I’ve spent enough time on college campuses over the last 10 to 15 years,” Rosen told JNS. “What did truly shock me was the cowardice of some of our elected leaders and cultural figures, and people who should absolutely have immediately responded in no uncertain terms in a strong moral voice, standing with Israel, standing with the Jewish people and denouncing this terrorism.”

Rosen continues to turn over the “puzzle” in her head of how it became tolerable for people to express things that they ought to be ashamed to think, let alone vocalize.

“It’s now openly endorsed by extremely powerful cultural and political leadership,” including the so-called “Squad” of progressive, anti-Israel members of the U.S. House of Representatives, whose young enthusiasts on social media have no grasp of Middle East history or anti-Israel and antisemitic terrorism, Rosen told JNS.

“That is where I probably shouldn’t have been surprised that there were so many political figures not willing to stand up,” she said. “That was an early marker of where the younger, more progressive wing of the Democratic Party has been headed for years.”

The “righteous among the nations,” according to Yad Vashem, are “non-Jews who took great risks to save Jews during the Holocaust” at “a time when hostility and indifference prevailed.” Rosen, who was raised a fundamentalist Christian, and other “righteous gentiles” in media with whom JNS spoke, didn’t hide Jews in their attics or, like Lafayette, arm themselves and fight in a foreign army for justice.

But Rosen, Christopher Rufo, a senior fellow and director of the initiative on critical race theory at the Manhattan Institute, and the conservative talk-show host Guy Benson told JNS about the slings and arrows they take on social media, and on other platforms, for defending the Jewish state and being outspoken about Jew-hatred. (The latter two have some 1.7 million followers combined across social media.)

“It’s been so encouraging to see non-Jews step in, and defend Israel and the Jewish people,” Karol Markowicz, a New York Post and Fox News columnist, podcaster and author who is Jewish, told JNS.

“It has cost them a lot. They take abuse for us and rarely get praise or an award,” Markowicz said. “Their bravery has made the silence of some Jews even more obvious and embarrassing.”
Erin Molan vs. the world: From Australian news anchor to pro-Israel firebrand
A few hours after touching down in Tel Aviv, Erin Molan stood at the edge of the Mediterranean, scanning the sky. A Houthi missile had recently landed nearby, bringing most air traffic to a standstill.

“I was looking outside at where it had landed and thinking about the absence of any condemnation for the injured innocent civilians or potential fatalities that could have occurred,” she said. “Every second, every day, I’m reminded of how hypocritical the rest of the world is.”

On her third visit to Israel in the past year, Molan was a guest of right-wing organization Nikraim LaDegel (Called to the Flag) at whose “Salute to Israel’s Independence Day” event she spoke on May 5. She also attended the Atlas Awards held by the Ayn Rand Center to receive an award for Moral Courage in recognition of her support for Israel and her commitment to truth in journalism.

Her schedule was short — just two nights in Tel Aviv — but densely packed with meetings, speeches, and encounters with families whose lives had been upended by war.

She recalled meeting a father whose child is still held hostage in Gaza, and a woman whose son was mistakenly shot by an IDF soldier.

“She held no anger,” Molan said. “That kind of forgiveness, that kind of resilience, stays with you.”

The Australian broadcaster, best known until recently for her sharp commentary on sports and politics, has spent the past seven months as one of the world’s most public pro-Israel advocates, highlighting the plight of the hostages and defending Israel’s war in Gaza.
From Ian:

Israel's Red Lines with Trump Are Vital for Survival
Disagreements with the Trump administration regarding Gaza, the Houthis, Iran, and Saudi Arabia represent positive developments for Israel.

The absence of such differences would be cause for deep concern.

It would be deeply troubling if Israel simply acquiesced and failed to defend matters essential to its security and existence.

Should Israel accept a potentially flawed nuclear agreement with Iran?

When Saudi Arabia is poised to receive American approval for a civilian nuclear reactor without normalizing relations with Israel, should Israel submit meekly?

When moments after Ben-Gurion Airport experienced the shock wave from a Houthi missile, the U.S. announces it will cease bombing the Houthis, should Israel simply disregard this?

While relations with the U.S. are indeed extremely important, matters affecting the security of every Israeli citizen are even more crucial.

Israel must remain steadfast and navigate skillfully through disagreement, even with a supportive administration that demonstrates affection for Israel.
Seth Mandel: Why Qatar Doesn’t Pass the ‘Tito Test’
For example, consider Qatar’s sponsorship of Hamas. The reason Israeli leaders believed they could live with a situation in which Qatar ensured that Gaza didn’t run out of money was because that money was supposed to come with strings attached. Qatar would keep Hamas afloat as the cost of keeping Gazans’ standard of living stable. (If you’ve seen the “this is what Israel destroyed” social media posts, you’ll know that not only was Gaza not an open-air prison but it actually had a lot to lose in from the invasion of Israel.)

In return, the Qataris would make sure that the level of terrorism was also kept stable at a manageable level. Under Hamas, Gaza was never going to become a peace colony, but putting a ceiling on Hamas’s threat was worth the price—at least, that was the gamble.

Oct. 7 destroyed that narrative. The Qataris weren’t, it turned out, keeping a lid on Gazan extremism; They were using the money instead to keep Hamas afloat while it planned the massive pogrom-like violence of that day.

Before Oct. 7, you could say “Yes, the Qataris fund Hamas, but….” There’s no “but” in the equation anymore.

Another example would be Qatar’s flooding of America’s elite universities with money. These donations at times reach unfathomable amounts, and they entrench a certain tolerance of extremism on campus when it comes to Israel and Jews. But it turned out—though surely many at these institutions expected the events of the past 18 months, and plenty of them approve of the riots—that the academic argument against Israel was also the academic argument against America. The students at Harvard also want Harvard to be destroyed, and they say so freely. Same goes for Columbia and the rest.

Then there’s the larger question of what can be controlled at all. Plant a carrot, declares Bellomy in The Fantasticks, and you get a carrot. But Qatar planted the seeds of self-hatred, anti-Semitism, and paranoid discontent among young and impressionable minds. That genie isn’t going back in the bottle even if Qatar wanted it to.

The Qataris don’t know how to play the game of geopolitics. They just have money and like spending it. The chaos they breed is far more of dangerous to the West than anything they accomplish with their occasional goodwill gestures.
Eitan Fischberger: Trump Should Listen to Qatar’s Own Words
As Donald Trump prepares land in Qatar this week — the first visit by a U.S. president since the Gulf state’s entanglement in the October 7 attacks began drawing renewed scrutiny in Washington — it’s paramount that his administration understand exactly who they’re dealing with.

Few regimes have mastered the art of duplicity quite like Qatar: On one hand, glitzy PR campaigns, lavish real estate investments, and global counterterror conferences; on the other, direct support for Hamas and antisemitic statements that would make Kanye West blush. The cracks in the facade become visible during those fleeting moments when Qatar lets its guard down — when it speaks under the assumption that nobody in the West is listening.

Qatar’s longstanding ruse has led many ostensibly well-meaning individuals to view it as a responsible mediator in global conflicts and a partner for business, diplomacy, and progress. Among these people is Steve Witkoff — President Trump’s Special Envoy to the Middle East and trusted negotiator, who has been working closely with the Qataris on a ceasefire in the Hamas-Israel war. During a recent appearance on Tucker Carlson’s podcast, Witkoff described Qatar as “well-motivated” and “good,” adding that the regime had “moderated quite a bit.”

Yet the mirage of morality vanishes the moment you take a hard look at what Qatari officials actually say — both in public statements and through its state-run media.

Take the Qatari Shura Council, the country’s top legislative body. After the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in the summer of 2024, the Speaker of the Council, Hassan bin Abdullah Al-Ghanim, delivered a glowing tribute to him, praising Haniyeh for “embodying the highest meanings of sacrifice and determination” and “defending the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people.”

Even more revealing are the statements of Sa'oud bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, now Qatar’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense. In 2014, during fighting between Israel and Hamas, Al Thani tweeted “We Are All Hamas” and “Revive the memory of [Izz Al-Din] Al Qassam” — a reference to Hamas’ military brigade. In 2021, Al Thani tweeted that “Israel’s control of the U.S. is clear,” and that Qatar must “plan how to influence the decision-makers in the U.S.”
Brendan O'Neill: How Some Americans Betrayed Edan Alexander
When a U.S. citizen, just 19, was taken captive by a fascist militia, some Americans wrapped their faces in the keffiyeh in gleeful mimicry of the militants who seized their compatriot. They cheered the jailers of their fellow citizen. "Glory to our martyrs," some cried, meaning the radical Islamists who had dragged their teenage countryman into a hellish lair and kept him there for 583 days.

Even as we share in the joy of the Alexander family, we must never forget how others in the U.S. betrayed this young American. Some even became unpaid propagandists for his captors. For 18 months, America's self-styled "anti-fascists" didn't so much as mention the words "Edan Alexander." They saved their warm words for his persecutors. That American radicals expressed more sympathy for Hamas than for its victims, even the American ones, is surely one of the greatest betrayals of decency of our time.
I believe that ethics is a critical framework for viewing the world. The proper question that should always be asked is not "is this legal?" or "is this consistent with my political party?" but the simpler question "is this right?"

The difficulty in examining Donald Trump is that his actions seem so chaotic and so inconsistent, and there is such a huge wave of actions he is doing, that most analyses get mired in looking at only a small slice of Donald Trump's philosophy.

What is often overlooked is that Trump does have a coherent philosophy. Trumpism is a political and moral philosophy that is as mature and complete as others like Machiavellian philosophy, Nietzschean philosophy or consequentialism. Whether Trumpism deserves to be called a philosophy in the traditional sense is debatable. What is beyond debate is that it operates as a guiding worldview for millions – and so must be treated as one.

The philosophy of the most powerful leader on the planet deserves to be studied and critiqued seriously. Those who mock it or distort it are not making the world a better place. After all, Trumpian philosophy is attractive to hundreds of millions of people. It means something. Not taking it seriously gives it power, and mocking it makes it more attractive to the people it wants to attract. 

One cannot critique a philosophy without defining it. Yet surprisingly few people have attempted to formally define the Trumpian way of thinking. Some conservatives will ably defend portions of his philosophy and some liberals will critique certain aspects but no one seems to have tried to describe it as a complete philosophy that deserves to be taken seriously.

Before we can determine the pros and cons of Trumpian ethics, we must define their axioms and rules. 

Here is my attempt. I am writing these rules as much as possible from the perspective of its adherents, not its detractors, because that is the only proper way to evaluate it. This structure is aspirational: it imagines Trumpism in its most coherent, enduring form, rather than just its current populist expression.

The Trumpian Philosophy

Trumpism has a mission statement and eight rules. 

Mission Statement:

“America First” is the central moral mission of the Trumpian worldview.
It defines the purpose of leadership as the protection, elevation, and restoration of the American nation – its economy, sovereignty, dignity, and strength. All decisions are justified by how well they serve this mission.


Rules:

1. The system is corrupt and rigged against the people; it must be dismantled and rebuilt.

America’s institutions — from bureaucracy to media, corporate leadership to foreign entanglements — serve entrenched elites at the expense of working citizens. Moral leadership begins with the recognition that disruption is not just justified, but necessary, to return power to the people.


2. Loyalty is the test of trust in a shared mission to restore national dignity and self-rule.

In a world shaped by betrayal, ideological hypocrisy, and institutional decay, personal loyalty is the clearest signal of alignment with the cause. You cannot reform a corrupt system with uncommitted or conflicted allies.


3. Narrative dominance is essential in a hostile and manipulated information environment.

Controlling the narrative is not just political survival – it is moral resistance against a media regime that distorts reality to protect power. Seizing attention, defining the conflict, creating new media outlets and publicly claiming victories are essential for retaining legitimacy.


4. Economic strength is national dignity.

A sovereign nation must be economically independent and self-sufficient to preserve its identity and pride. Trade deals, energy independence, industrial policy, and job creation are not merely economic choices – they are moral acts of restoration.


5. Strategy must be transactional and leverage-based.

Global diplomacy, domestic politics, and even alliances must be judged by outcomes, not ideals. Deals are good only if they benefit the American people now – strength, not sentimentality, defines strategic success. Avoid long term strategies that depend on factors out of America's control 


6. Institutional roles and norms must be tested and replaced if broken.

Bureaucracies, traditions, and diplomatic rituals have become defensive shields for failure. True reform requires irreverence: breaking rules that no longer serve the national good and rebuilding systems that do.


7. Momentum is moral – move fast, break what’s broken, and fix only what truly demands it.

Speed is clarity. Stagnation enables decay and resistance. Action – even disruptive action – is more moral than paralysis in a corrupted environment. There is always time for course correction later. 


8. Legal boundaries must be challenged when corrupted, but respected when legitimately upheld.

The law must serve the people, not protect those in power from accountability. Testing legal boundaries is justified when the law has become a weapon – but true rulings, once settled, are respected as part of the rule of law. (While adherence to final rulings is claimed, legal institutions themselves are often challenged as illegitimate when they oppose the movement’s goals.)



While Trumpism often resembles a personality cult, it has evolved. Its goal is to keep itself as the governing ethos in 2028 and beyond - it must survive Trump himself. So while some of the rules might today revolve around Donald Trump's own instincts and beliefs, as a philosophy it is meant to become a permanent part of the American scene. These rules were written from that perspective. 

This framework presents Trumpism as an internally coherent moral-political system, not a random series of actions. It treats disruption as ethical, loyalty as epistemic, and success as proof of legitimacy. It offers a theory of action, leadership, and national restoration that appeals deeply to those disillusioned with elite institutions and it provides a serious basis for philosophical critique. 

A Jewish ethical critique of Trumpism

With a personality as polarizing as Donald Trump, it is difficult to be truly objective. Yet objectivity is what is required to honestly evaluate Trumpism as a philosophy. The Jewish ethical framework I have been defining provides a perfect method to begin such an analysis without the enormous baggage of partisan politics. Jewish ethics is a timeless, sophisticated baseline through which any system may be analyzed, including Trumpism.

I input the first part of this essay into the Jewish Ethical Chatbot I have been building and refining, because it would be as objective as possible. 

Here are the assumptions I put into the analysis: 

- The critique is of Trumpism on its own terms, not on how successful it is or how well it lives up to its own standards.

- The critique is both from the perspective of Jewish personal ethics and Jewish national ethics.

- The critique is meant to highlight both what is good and what is bad about Trumpism as defined here.

- I am trying to show how Jewish ethics is a valuable means to analyze any and every other philosophy for both Jewish and secular audiences.

The resulting report is quite good and provides a rare, clear -eyed view of today's most consequential political philosophy.

__________________________

Ethical Summary of Trumpism Through Jewish Moral Reasoning

Overview:
Approaching Trumpism as a coherent moral-political philosophy—rather than a chaotic set of actions—opens the door for serious ethical evaluation. From a Jewish ethical standpoint, there are aspects of Trumpism that resonate with enduring values like national preservation, economic dignity, and realism about institutional decay. However, its framework also contains deep and troubling departures from essential moral commitments such as truthfulness, moral accountability, human dignity, and ethical leadership.


Affirmed Values:

  1. National Sovereignty and Self-Defense: Trumpism’s emphasis on national strength, border control, and economic independence aligns in part with the Jewish value of preservation of life and sovereignty (pikuach nefesh and milchemet mitzvah). Jewish ethics affirms that a nation has a sacred duty to protect its people and culture.

  2. Economic Dignity: Trumpism treats economic revitalization as moral restoration. Jewish ethics similarly links economic justice with human dignity, affirming the importance of protecting workers and preventing national economic decay.

  3. Distrust of Corrupt Institutions: The suspicion of entrenched elites reflects the Jewish tradition of prophetic critique against power structures that abandon justice. The critique of bureaucracies, media bias, or unaccountable elites echoes the Jewish demand for transparent and just governance.

  4. Action over Paralysis: Trumpism’s urgency and disdain for inertia has parallels in Jewish ethics’ prioritization of moral courage and proactive responsibility (lo ta’amod al dam re’echa). When systems are corrupt or dangerous, reform must not be indefinitely delayed.


Ethical Concerns and Departures:

  1. Truth vs. Narrative Control:

    • Trumpism elevates “narrative dominance” as a moral weapon. In Jewish ethics, however, emet (truth) is sacred and cannot be subordinated to power. Manipulating perception for gain—even to counter media bias—undermines the moral bedrock of trust, justice, and dignity. There is no Jewish precedent for morally justifying distortion of reality in public life as a default strategy.

  2. Loyalty over Principle:

    • Loyalty in Trumpism is cast as the supreme test of trust. While Jewish ethics values loyalty (brit), it never substitutes loyalty for accountability. Prophets like Nathan and Elijah confronted kings directly; rebuke was not betrayal—it was righteousness. A system that discourages internal critique is ethically unstable.

  3. Personality Cult and Legitimacy by Success:

    • Jewish ethics strongly rejects the idea that power or popularity proves moral rightness. Leadership is a burden of conscience, not a validation of ego. Trumpism risks becoming a cult of success—a position Judaism condemns as idolatry of the self.

  4. Justice Undermined by Transactionalism:

    • While Jewish diplomacy permits compromise, it cannot reduce moral duties to leverage. Trumpism’s deal-centric worldview erodes the ethical standing of principles like human rights, minority protection, and covenantal responsibility.

  5. Disruption Without Reconstruction:

    • Jewish ethics supports institutional reform—but not indiscriminate tearing down. Lifnim mishurat hadin (beyond the letter of the law) urges moral restraint even in just causes. Breaking what is broken must be followed by responsible rebuilding, grounded in humility and care. Trumpism lacks this ethical safety net.

  6. Legal Opportunism:

    • While challenging unjust laws is valid, Trumpism’s tendency to test legal limits for strategic gain risks instrumentalizing the law. Jewish ethics demands that law be a teacher of morality—not a tool of convenience.


Conclusion:
Trumpism  gives voice to real disillusionment with failing elites and offers a compelling, emotionally resonant vision of national revival. But its moral compass is selectively applied and structurally vulnerable to abuse. Jewish ethics calls for a nation rooted in justice, truth, humility, and compassion—not just strength, loyalty, and victory.

This recommendation reflects structured Jewish ethical reasoning. It does not constitute a halachic ruling. Complex or uncertain cases should be brought to qualified rabbinic or halachic authorities.


_________________

Disclaimer:  I came up with the rules of Trumpian philosophy but the description here was mostly written by AI. As stated, the critique was entirely written by my AI-based Jewish ethical chatbot. 






Buy EoZ's books  on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

   
 

 

From the Scapegoat’s Point of View
by Adam Louis-Klein

Adam Louis-Klein is a PhD candidate in Anthropology at McGill University, researching antisemitism, peoplehood, and comparative struggles over indigeneity and historical belonging. He writes regularly on these topics on Facebook, where he explores the ideological structures driving modern anti-Jewish hostility and the global assault on Jewish peoplehood. 

------------------------------------------------------


What we’re witnessing today is a coordinated assault on Jewish existence, divided between cultural erasure in the West and the pursuit of physical extermination abroad. But this is no longer just a scattered set of prejudices or disconnected political movements—it has cohered into a holistic ideology and, increasingly, an institutional framework. What began as a battlefield strategy of Iran, Hamas, and other jihadist movements—combining psychological warfare, propaganda, and asymmetric violence—has been extended into Western cultural, academic, and political institutions.

In the West, the activist-university-NGO class works relentlessly to push Jews out of public life unless they renounce their connection to their ancestral homeland and the people who live there. Jews are pressured to disavow their collective identity, redefine themselves as “White,” and deny their status as a distinct and indigenous people. This is a modern form of forced assimilation—one that echoes the historical forced conversions Jews endured for centuries under both Christian and Islamic empires. Then, as now, Jewish distinctiveness is treated as an intolerable affront to universalizing ideologies.


At the same time, Iran, the Muslim Brotherhood, and jihadist militias openly pursue the physical destruction of Israel and the Jewish People. These forces operate in tandem: cultural erasure in the West, physical annihilation in the East. And at the center of it all is the same recurring target—Jewish distinctiveness—now conveniently labeled “Zionism,” a stand-in for the reality of Jewish Peoplehood and the right of Jews to live openly as a people among the nations.

This is why the constant accusation of “genocide” against Israel—used to demonize any Jew who refuses to sever ties with their people as a so-called “genocide supporter”—is not merely a lie. It is a political weapon, part and parcel of the broader project of antisemitic exclusion. These accusations are not isolated statements to be analyzed in abstraction; they operate as mechanisms of social control, enforcing the marginalization of Jews in cultural, academic, and professional life unless they publicly repudiate their peoplehood and sever their historical and emotional ties to Israel.

This discourse functions through a closed circular logic. The point is not the content of any single claim, but the form of the discourse itself: a self-reinforcing system that closes off critical inquiry and punishes dissent through moral panic and public shaming. We must not allow ourselves to be overwhelmed or demoralized by this endless flood of accusations, which do not proceed from a genuine concern for truth but from a self-sustaining strategy of escalating defamation. Instead, we must learn to recognize the structure of this discourse, expose the system that generates it, and refuse to be drawn into its trap—bypassing its manufactured moral crises and standing firm in the clarity of our own commitments.

At the same time, the universalism of international law—born in part from the memory of the Holocaust—has been twisted and weaponized against the very people whose suffering helped bring it into being. Instead of moving from the particular experience of the Holocaust to a genuine, principled universal concern with genocide, that universality has been distorted and turned back against the Jews themselves. We are witnessing a dialectical inversion: the language of universal rights deployed precisely to deny the Jewish People the right to exist.

This inversion has found its most powerful rhetorical vehicle in the language of anti-colonialism, where the accusation of genocide against Israel is presented not as a claim requiring evidence, but as a self-evident truth derived from a broader anti-colonial framework.

And yet, even this inversion relies on a dangerous historical simplification. The conversation about colonialism and genocide has become trapped in a narrow framework that views these phenomena almost exclusively through the lens of European imperialism. As a result, other imperial formations—and their long histories of conquest, domination, and genocide—are erased or excused. But no serious, honest reckoning with the global history of genocide can avoid confronting the imperial legacies of Islamism and their ongoing consequences for indigenous and minority peoples across the Middle East and beyond.

The Armenian Genocide stands as a critical case in point. Far from being an isolated outbreak of nationalist violence, it was carried out under the banner of an imperial Islamist ideology that fused religious supremacy with imperial ambition. The Ottoman Empire, in its final decades, sought to reassert control over its fracturing territories through the ideology of Pan-Islamism—declaring Jihad and mobilizing Muslim populations against Christian minorities, most brutally against the Armenians, but also targeting Assyrians, Greeks, and other indigenous Christian peoples of the region. This genocide was not simply a product of ethnic nationalism; it was driven by an imperial Islamic vision of religious and territorial purification.

A full and honest analysis of the relationship between colonialism and genocide would interrogate these dimensions of Islamist imperialism—both historical and contemporary. It would ask why the ongoing persecution and erasure of minorities in the Middle East—Yazidis, Assyrians, Copts, Kurds, and of course, Jews—is so often left out of the global conversation on colonialism and genocide. It would confront the reality that, long before European colonial powers arrived, many of these indigenous and ethnoreligious peoples had already suffered under Islamic imperial domination, forced conversions, and displacement. And it would recognize that this historical pattern continues today under modern Islamist movements that openly aspire to restore imperial dominance under the guise of religious or anti-colonial struggle.

Such an analysis would also challenge the assumption that genocide is primarily a byproduct of modern nation-state nationalism. In fact, it is often imperial nationalisms—ideological projects that combine the expansive ambitions of empire with a violent drive for cultural, religious, or ethnic homogeneity—that have been the most devastating engines of genocide. The Ottoman vision of a purified Islamic empire, Nazi Germany’s project of a racially pure Reich, and contemporary Islamist movements dreaming of a global Caliphate all share this imperialist structure. These are not defensive or localized nationalisms but expansive, totalizing visions that seek to dominate and erase entire peoples in the service of their ideological goals.

Genocide, then, should not be flattened into a simplistic narrative of colonial victimhood or tied exclusively to the legacy of Western imperialism. Nor should colonialism itself be reduced to a purely European phenomenon. If we are serious about universal justice, we must confront all imperial formations—Christian, Islamic, European, and otherwise—that have built their power on the conquest, assimilation, and annihilation of distinct peoples. And we must recognize that the genocidal ideologies of the present are not confined to the nationalist right, but are alive and well in the imperial ambitions of Islamist movements that continue to target Jews and other indigenous peoples of the Middle East for erasure.

Through a sophisticated interplay of media manipulation, NGO activism, and academic endorsement, we are seeing the seamless integration of this anti-Jewish ideological project into the very heart of Western discourse. This is not a coincidence. After World War II, while Europe underwent an intensive process of denazification, much of the ideological machinery of Nazism found refuge and continuity in the Middle East, particularly through figures like the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and the entrenchment of Nazi propaganda within the political cultures of the Arab world. The Grand Mufti, Haj Amin al-Husseini, met with Hitler, collaborated with the SS, and broadcast pro-Nazi, antisemitic radio propaganda to the Arab world. His ideological heirs include the Muslim Brotherhood, whose fusion of political Islam and antisemitism laid the groundwork for groups like Hamas—whose founding charter cites The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. After World War II, prominent Nazi propagandist Johann von Leers fled to Cairo, converted to Islam, and helped establish a center dedicated to antizionist agitation, blending Nazi conspiracies with Islamist thought. The Protocols and similar texts circulated widely among Islamist and pan-Arabist groups, forming a foundation for postwar antizionist ideology.

At the core of today’s genocidal rhetoric is a dangerously simplistic and abstract syllogism that now circulates almost unchallenged in activist, academic, and policy spaces:

“All colonialism is genocide; Israel is colonialism; therefore, Israel is committing genocide.”

This formula is presented with the force of moral certainty, but it collapses under even the most basic scrutiny. Its simplicity is precisely what makes it so seductive and so dangerous—it reduces history to a set of abstract categories, flattens complex political realities, and replaces concrete analysis with a priori ideological reasoning. Instead of investigating the specific facts on the ground, it proceeds by deduction from premises that are themselves historically and conceptually flawed.

The first premise—“All colonialism is genocide”—is itself a distortion. While colonialism has undoubtedly involved genocidal episodes, not all colonial projects have pursued or resulted in genocide. To equate the two absolutely is to erase important historical distinctions and to rob the concept of genocide of its specificity and analytical clarity. Genocide, as a distinct crime, involves the deliberate intention to destroy a people as such—something far more specific than the broad, often exploitative, but not necessarily annihilatory dynamics of colonial regimes. While colonialism and genocide may surely interact, they are not identical.

The second premise—“Israel is colonialism”—is simply false. It rests on a deliberate mischaracterization of Zionism as a foreign, settler-colonial movement imposed upon the Middle East by Western powers. This ignores the basic historical and anthropological fact that the Jewish People are indigenous to the Land of Israel, with an unbroken cultural, religious, and historical connection to that land stretching back millennia.

Zionism is not an expression of European colonial expansion—it is a movement of indigenous return, a national liberation movement responding to centuries of forced exile, persecution, and dispossession. To frame Jews as colonial invaders in their own ancestral homeland is to invert reality entirely, erasing the history of Jewish survival and return in favor of a politically convenient fiction. As Ben M. Freeman has shown, Jews fulfill every substantive criterion of indigeneity: their ethnogenesis took place in the Land of Israel; their ritual and calendrical life is tied to its ecological rhythms and seasons; their collective identity and ancestral memory are grounded in that specific territory; and their attachment to the land has endured for millennia, despite dispersion and exile. If these standards apply to others—and rightly so—they must apply to Jews as well. Anything less is not intellectual rigor but political selectivity.

Moreover, this ideological framework thrives precisely because it plays into a deeply narcissistic form of Western self-critique—one that centers the moral failings of the West while casting Jews, paradoxically, as both the eternal outsiders and the ultimate symbols of Western guilt. In this schema, the “White Jew” becomes the scapegoat par excellence, the one who must bear the weight of colonial sins that have nothing to do with Jewish history but everything to do with Europe’s need for self-absolution. The Jew is simultaneously cast out as a foreign body and condemned as the privileged insider, eternally caught in this double bind.

This is not analysis—it is a moralized abstraction that weaponizes both the language of decolonization and the memory of genocide, not to prevent genocide, but to justify and conceal new forms of antisemitic exclusion and, in the case of Israel, openly expressed fantasies of annihilation.

This is the reality we face: an ideological and institutional assault that works across every register—legal, political, academic, and cultural—to isolate, delegitimize, and ultimately erase Jewish distinctiveness. It takes the battlefield strategies of genocidal actors abroad and repackages them as moral imperatives in the West. It turns international law, born from the horrors of the Holocaust, against its very creators. It revives the specters of both Christian and Islamic imperial ideologies, erases Jewish indigeneity through false historical narratives, and weaponizes concepts like colonialism and genocide to render the Jews uniquely guilty among the nations.

Through circular accusations and closed discourses, antizionism creates a social environment in which Jews are accepted only on the condition of their self-negation—only if they reject their peoplehood, their history, and their living ties to Israel. And when they refuse, they are denounced not merely as wrong, but as inherently evil—as supporters of genocide, the most unforgivable crime imaginable. This is not a debate over abstract concepts; it is a deliberate assault on the political, cultural, and even physical existence of the Jewish People. And it will not stop with Israel.  

At bottom, antisemitism constructs two contradictory realities: one imposed upon Jews, and one spoken endlessly about them—but rarely with them. A tiny, often invisible minority becomes symbolically inflated into the source of all social contradictions, and when Jews speak—when they assert their history or defend their peoplehood—their voice is met not with engagement but with suspicion.

This dynamic is amplified through the mechanisms of genocide inversion that we have described here. For non-Jewish societies, the image of the Jew as the ultimate victim of the Holocaust is an uncomfortable symbol of absolute suffering that imposes an unresolved moral debt. Yet, this very image conflicts with the deep-seated tendency to cast Jews as figures of power, wealth, and hidden control. The accusation of genocide against Israel functions as a backlash against that unresolved tension. It discharges the burden of Holocaust empathy by inverting victimhood itself—transforming Jews from the paradigmatic victims of genocide into its alleged perpetrators. Jews then appear either as absolute victims or absolute villains, but never as ordinary people in all their complexity and humanity.

And yet, despite every attempt to erase us—through forced conversion, forced assimilation, or outright extermination—the Jewish People endures, distinct and alive, refusing to disappear. This too is part of our story—the story of survival, resilience, and return. And it is precisely that story—the undeniable proof that a people can endure against the greatest odds—that they most wish to erase. Which is why, in the face of these pressures, we must take up the work of internal clarity, standing firm in who we are and refusing to let others define our history, our identity, or our future.

-         





Buy EoZ's books  on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

   
 

 

AddToAny

Printfriendly

EoZTV Podcast

Podcast URL

Subscribe in podnovaSubscribe with FeedlyAdd to netvibes
addtomyyahoo4Subscribe with SubToMe

search eoz

comments

Speaking

translate

E-Book

For $18 donation








Sample Text

EoZ's Most Popular Posts in recent years

Search2

Hasbys!

Elder of Ziyon - حـكـيـم صـهـيـون



This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For 20 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

Donate!

Donate to fight for Israel!

Monthly subscription:
Payment options


One time donation:

Follow EoZ on Twitter!

Interesting Blogs

Blog Archive