Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, June 24, 2025

06/24 Links Pt2: The Ayatollah’s Lifeline: Made in the West; Benny Morris; Israel & Iran; Sinwar’s March of Folly; Zohran Mamdani’s long war on Israel

From Ian:

Jeffrey Goldberg: Sinwar’s March of Folly

Sinwar’s misunderstanding of Israel was, if anything, deeper than Iran’s misunderstanding of Trump. Hamas and other Palestinian groups believe that Israelis see themselves as foreign implants, and therefore can easily be brought to defeat. Sinwar’s misplaced confidence in theories of settler colonialism and Jewish perfidy undermined his strategic effectiveness. Sinwar was so convinced of his beliefs that he even sponsored a conference in 2021 called “The Promise of the Hereafter—Post-Liberation Palestine,” in which specific plans were discussed for the building of Palestine on the ruins of Israel. “Educated Jews and experts in the areas of medicine, engineering, technology, and civilian and military industry should be retained in Palestine for some time and should not be allowed to leave and take with them the knowledge and experience that they acquired while living in our land and enjoying its bounty,” one presentation read.

The theme of this conference, which was held in Gaza, was an echo of a statement made by Hassan Nasrallah, then the leader of Hezbollah, who said in 2000, “This Israel, with its nuclear weapons and most advanced warplanes in the region, I swear by Allah, is actually weaker than a spider’s web … Israel may appear strong from the outside, but it’s easily destroyed and defeated.” Nasrallah was assassinated by Israel nine months ago.

I asked Yossi Klein Halevi, a senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute, in Jerusalem, to explain the root of this misapprehension. “The only way you can believe that Israel is Nasrallah’s spiderweb is if you believe that we don’t have substance here, that we’re not a rooted people,” he said. “The problem with Sinwar is that he believed his own propaganda. He believed that we ourselves believe that we don’t belong here. Our enemies in the Arab and Muslim worlds don’t understand that their perception of Israel and of Jews is based on a lie.”

If nothing else, the wars of the past 20 months have proved that Israel’s adversaries are not adept at analyzing political and social phenomena as they manifest in reality. Walter Russell Mead, the historian, once explained that a weakness of anti-Semites is that they have difficulty understanding the world as it actually works, and don’t comprehend cause and effect in either politics or economics. Sinwar, Nasrallah, and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei himself saw Israel as they wished it was, not as it actually is. And in part because of this, they placed their movements in mortal danger.

Sharansky: ‘The Iranian regime was exposed before its people as a paper tiger’

For decades, former Israeli politician and Soviet refusenik Natan Sharansky has championed the cause of freedom from oppressive regimes. Dissidents across the world have found inspiration in his books and sought his advice and support.

Iranians seeking to topple the totalitarian mullahs’ regime are no different.

Soon after Israel began its strikes on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear, weapons production and military sites, Sharansky, who has been in contact with Iranian dissidents, expressed hope that the war would increase pressure on the regime from within Iran, leading to its downfall.

That hope has been reflected in statements by President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the operation, though after the interview, Trump told reporters on Air Force One that he favors stability over regime change.

Sharansky spoke with Jewish Insider on Tuesday about the prospects of the Iranian people rising up against Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, even after a shaky ceasefire had been declared between Israel and Iran.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Jewish Insider: What did this war between Israel and Iran mean for the possibility of regime change in Iran?

Natan Sharansky: It’s difficult to speak now, because we don’t know what kind of [ceasefire] agreement it is, whether it is the type with Hezbollah, the type that prevents Iran from rebuilding their ballistic missiles.

What is important is that the regime has been very weakened in the eyes of its own people.

A regime like Iran needs control not only over practical matters, it needs a way to keep its people under control, and the only control they had is through fear. The moment the level of fear goes down, or the empire looks weak, or some serious event causes people to doubt it, the regime can fall apart very quickly.

If some people cross the line of fear and go to the streets and resist, [the regime] can fall in a few days, as it did in Eastern Europe or in Tahrir Square in Egypt.

[On Monday], I thought we were very close. The fact that Israel was destroying the symbols of the regime, one after the other — the [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] headquarters, the Interior Ministry that controlled people’s movement — meant the regime was being weakened in the eyes of its own people.

The Ayatollah’s Lifeline: Made in the West

The nuclear plants may have been damaged or destroyed, but the regime’s nuclear ambitions are very much alive. Now, with the ceasefire announced shortly after these strikes — initially denied by both sides but rapidly taking effect — the regime has been given a chance to regroup and come back stronger.

This ceasefire paves the way to lifting sanctions. Once sanctions are lifted, the regime will have the funds to rebuild everything: its nuclear program, its terror networks, its brutal internal repression. The world has once again handed the Ayatollahs exactly what they wanted, a lifeline. Trump announcing China can now buy oil again from Iran proves exactly that.

Reports say, The exiled crown prince of Iran, Reza Pahlavi, unfollowed Netanyahu and Trump on social media. If true, he for sure feels betrayed by this ceasefire that leaves the Ayatollah in power.

Even worse, they don’t need 100 nuclear weapons; they only need one. One bomb is enough to wipe Israel off the map. And they can get it from any rogue actor willing to sell. A wounded humiliated and weak tyrant is more dangerous than a happy one. The regime was clear they won’t stop. Some countries are willing to provide them the bomb. They are selling the ceasefire to their radical jihadi followers as a win against the “empire” and the “zionist entity.”

Why do we keep betraying millions of Iranians — risking their dreams of freedom — to save a regime that jails, tortures, and executes its own people?

Why do we force Israel to stop short of victory every time it defends itself against terror? Enough.

Let the regime in Iran fall. Stop handing it lifelines. Stop romanticizing, they are a regime designed for tyranny. Stand with the people of Iran — not their jailers and oppressors.

And let Israel win. Stop interrupting wars halfway through and pretending that “both sides” just need to stop. One side seeks to live. The other seeks to destroy. The world is failing at the moral test.

The pattern is clear: when tyrants are vulnerable, the world protects them. When democracies defend themselves, they are told to stand down.

Let the regime in Iran fall.

Let Israel win its wars.

Stop saving tyrants.

Stand with the people.

The world must stop saving the Ayatollahs.

The nuclear plants may be gone — but Iran’s deadly ambition lives on.

06/24 Links Pt1: Winners and Losers of the 12-Day Israel–Iran War; The Failed Soothsayers of Armageddon; UN Nuclear Watchdog Chief: ‘Night and Day’ Difference Between Iran’s Nuclear Capabilities

From Ian:

John Spencer: Winners and Losers of the 12-Day Israel–Iran War

“War is thus an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will.” — Carl von Clausewitz War is not chaos. It is the deliberate application of force in pursuit of political objectives. Every modern conflict must be judged according to those objectives. In the 12-day war between Israel and Iran, three major actors pursued distinct goals: Israel, Iran, and the United States. Based on what can be objectively and openly assessed, Israel and the United States achieved overwhelming success at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels. Iran, while executing limited retaliation, suffered a decisive defeat. Most importantly, the world is now safer, because Iran is no longer as close to acquiring a nuclear weapon.

Israel: Precision, Superiority, and Clarity of Purpose
From the outset of Operation Rising Lion, Israel’s political objective was clear. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared on day one that Israel would no longer accept the threat of a near-term nuclear-armed Iran. Within the first 72 hours, Israel conducted one of the most sophisticated preemptive strike campaigns in modern history.

Over 300 guided munitions were launched in five synchronized waves. Israel struck dozens of critical Iranian targets including nuclear facilities, air bases, missile launchers, drone hubs, and leadership compounds. This was done while Israel was simultaneously conducting a major ground operation in Gaza, deterring Hezbollah and defending its own civilians from daily missile attacks.

Israel did more than strike deep. It dominated Iranian skies. The Israeli Air Force operated freely over Iranian territory. No Israeli aircraft were shot down. Not a single pilot was forced to eject or be rescued. Iran’s air defenses, including Russian-built systems, failed to stop any manned aircraft. Israel demonstrated complete air superiority and the operational freedom to hit any target, anywhere inside Iran, without interference.

This display of power shattered the myth of Iran’s invulnerability. For years, the Islamic Republic built a perception of strength based on its nuclear program, missile arsenal, and proxy network. In 12 days, Israel dismantled that illusion. Its actions signaled to the region and to the world that Iran can be struck, its infrastructure can be broken, and its leadership can be targeted without hesitation.

Strategic Decapitation and Nuclear Disruption

Israel's operation focused not only on infrastructure, but also on people. Over 20 senior Iranian military commanders were killed, including:
Hossein Salami, Commander-in-Chief of the IRGC
Mohammad Bagheri, Chief of Staff of Iran’s Armed Forces
Gholamali Rashid, head of Khatam al-Anbia Headquarters
Amir Ali Hajizadeh, IRGC Aerospace Commander
Saeed Izadi and Mohammad Shahriari, senior Quds Force officers
IRGC intelligence chief Mohammad Kazemi and his deputy Hassan Mohaqiq
In parallel, at least 14 nuclear scientists were eliminated. These included Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, former head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, and physicist Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi. Their deaths dealt a devastating blow to Iran’s nuclear weapons capability.

Major nuclear facilities were heavily damaged or degraded:
Natanz suffered destruction of its above-ground pilot enrichment plant and possible damage to underground centrifuges
Isfahan, struck twice, saw nuclear research infrastructure destroyed
Explosions near Fordow suggest the deeply buried site was severely damaged, especially with U.S. support using bunker-busting munitions
Tehran-based administrative and centrifuge production sites were also hit

Initial assessments indicate that Israel destroyed up to 1,000 ballistic missiles on the ground. Roughly 65 percent of Iran’s launchers were neutralized. Airfields, storage depots, and radar installations across western Iran were wiped out.

The Failed Soothsayers of Armageddon By Abe Greenwald

Via Commentary Podcast sign up here. Where do the doomsday prognosticators about Israel’s attack on Iran go from here? Before Israel and the U.S. destroyed Iran’s nuclear program, these hysterics had made frightful predictions. They warned of everything from a prolonged nation-building slog to a new migrant crisis to a world-wide financial collapse to a global (possibly nuclear) war. They predicted that thousands of Americans would die in a week. And they got everything wrong.

Here's what happened: In 12 days, Israel and the U.S. wiped out Iran’s ability to make a nuclear weapon. Iran launched some missiles and drones at Israel (and an American base), most of which were intercepted. No one else got involved. Donald Trump instituted a cease-fire and has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize that he will never win. But you can expect more good news to come out of the region soon, because an enfeebled Iran opens up a world of possibilities.

It's bad enough to be proven spectacularly wrong immediately and before the entire world. But it’s worse to then be stuck on the losing side as the victors advance the common good. This can force you to say very stupid things. For example, before Donald Trump sent in the B-2s, Matt Duss, former foreign-policy adviser to Bernie Sanders and forever critic of Israel, wrote that he was “in horror at the prospect of a direct conflict between Iran and America.” He now acknowledges the catastrophe that wasn’t thus: “Not for the first time, it seems that lots of people aren’t going to die because Iran showed more restraint than the US and Israel.” Some claims are too disconnected from reality to merit debunking. But they do merit laughter.

And you can laugh at this, too. In the New York Times, Ali Vaez, Iran director for the International Crisis Group, told reporter Farnaz Fassihi that everyone—Israel, the U.S., and Iran—can claim a win here: “The United States can say it has set back Iran’s nuclear program,” he said. “Israel can say it has weakened Iran, a regional adversary, and Iran can say it has survived and pushed back against much stronger military powers.”

And I can say that I’m the pope, but that won’t transport me to the Vatican.

The truth is that Israel and the United States are the victors, and Iran is the loser. No one, including Ali Vaez and Ayatollah Khamenei himself, believes otherwise.

Did Iran Just Blink

Critics of the American bombing raid on Iran have warned that it could lead to dangerous retaliation, and risk dragging the U.S. into a broader conflict. (How this could be a greater risk than allowing the murderous fanatics who govern Iran to have nuclear weapons is a separate question.) Yesterday, Iran indeed retaliated. Noah Rothman writes:
On Monday, Iranian state media released a high-production-value video revealing [the government’s] intention to strike U.S. forces inside neighboring Qatar. A bombastic statement from Iran’s Supreme National Security Council accompanying the video claimed that Iran had launched a salvo of ten missiles at the U.S.-manned Al Udeid Air Base, which “pulverized” American forces. In reality, the missiles seem to have all been intercepted before they reached their targets. No casualties have been reported.

In fact, the Iranians quietly gave Qatar—the Gulf state with which they have the best relations—advance warning of the attack, knowing that the Qataris would then pass it on to the U.S. Thus prepared, American forces were able to minimize the damage. Rothman continues:
So far, Iran’s retaliatory response to U.S. strikes on its nuclear program looks a lot like its reaction to the 2020 attack that killed the Revolutionary Guard commander Qassem Suleimani—which is to say that it seems like Tehran is seeking an offramp to avoid a potentially existential conflict with the United States.

Now, it’s important to note that this is only a face-saving climb-down if that’s how we want to interpret it. The only reason why we remember the Iranian operation aimed at avenging Soleimani’s death as a cease-fire overture is because we decided to take it that way. We didn’t have to do that. One-hundred-and-ten U.S. service personnel were treated for injuries as a result of that direct and unprecedented ballistic-missile attack on U.S. forces in Iraq. . . . The U.S. could have regarded that strike as an unacceptable precedent, but the Trump administration had made its point. By simply deeming deterrence to have been restored, the U.S. helped bring that condition about.

It appears that is precisely what the U.S. has done this time. Last night both Washington and Tehran announced a cease-fire, one that includes Israel. Whether it will hold remains to be seen; Iran already managed to get in a deadly, eleventh-hour attack on civilians in Beersheba. If Jerusalem knew such an arrangement was in the cards—and there is every reason to think it did—then its military activities over the past few days start to make a great deal of sense.

Since June 13, there has been some lack of clarity about whether Israel’s goal is to destroy Iran’s nuclear and ballistic-missile capabilities, or to destabilize the regime. Now it seems that the IDF has been doing precisely what it has done in the final phase of almost every prior war: try to inflict as much damage as possible upon the enemy’s military infrastructure before the U.S. blows the whistle and declares the war over—thus reestablishing deterrence and leaving its enemy’s offensive capabilities severely weakened.

In the next item, I’ll turn to some of the nonmilitary targets Israel chose.

The Institute for Palestine Studies last year launched a digital project, supervised by Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah, Documenting the Targeting and Destruction of the Health Sector in the Gaza Strip.

So I looked up Ghassan Abu-Sittah, a British plastic surgeon born in Kuwait. I found one interview where he said:

On June 4, 1982, the Israelis began their invasion of Lebanon by targeting every Palestinian Red Crescent Society hospital in Lebanon with airstrikes. This has always been a component of this kind of dead policy of Israeli wars against the Palestinians, targeting the health system.

This never happened. I only found one Palestinian hospital that was bombed, the "Gaza" hospital right outside the Sabra and Shatila camp, and it was not bombed in the initial invasion.

Abu Sittah is a liar.

He also said in the same interview:

I think it was Ben-Gurion who said, "I cannot bear to think that we will have to live in the same country as these people."

Ben Gurion never said this. Neither did any Zionist leader.

Abu Sittah is a liar.

He further said:

When you hear what they did to Dr. Mohammed Abu Salmiya, the medical director of Al-Shifa Hospital, who they arrested, to try to get him to go on TV and say that there are tunnels under Al-Shifa Hospital. They broke his arms. They made him walk on all fours with a chain around his neck. They made him eat from a plate on the floor in front of the other doctors, because he refused to go on TV and say that the Israelis were right. The Israelis were hoping to get a victory photo in front of Al-Shifa Hospital, but they didn't get one. They didn't get a victory photo.

When Salmiya was released, he gave a press conference. While he did claim he was tortured, he didn't say anything about his arms being broken or his neck being chained or his being forced to eat from a plate on the floor. If those things happened, and he had world media in front of him, why wouldn't he say it?

Abu Sittah is a liar.

So the Institute for Palestine Studies hired an established liar to document....more lies.

Sounds about right.

(h/t Irene)

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By Daled Amos

Israel's attack on Iran caught everyone by surprise.
Later, the US bombing of Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan caught people by surprise, too.

So maybe it makes sense that Trump's announcement of a ceasefire was also a surprise:

After the podcasts started to sink their teeth into the implications of Operation Midnight Hammer, delving into questions such as the future of Iran's nuclear program, the stability of the region, and whether Israel had an exit ramp--Trump was again one step ahead, and announced a timetable for the end of hostilities by both sides.

Of course, in the Middle East, ceasefires are not easy to come by. Just look at Gaza. And there is the underlying suspicion that a ceasefire is just a hudna--an opportunity to rest, rearm, and resume hostilities at a more fortuitous moment.

But has Iran even agreed to a ceasefire?

It's not as if Iran was in a rush to admit to the implied weakness of agreeing.

Back in 1988, Ayatollah Khomeini referred to the decision to agree to a ceasefire to end the 8-year-long Iran-Iraq War as "a chalice of poison." Ayatollah Khamenei cannot be feeling any better agreeing to a ceasefire ending a war that lasted 12 days.

That explains some of the face-saving claims on social media.

Monday night, Seyed Abbas Araghchi, Iran's foreign minister, denied there was any ceasefire:

But that didn't stop him from posting just 15 minutes later:

That was quite a turnaround.

MEMRI shared something similar with a video of Iranian General Ebrahim Jabbari, advisor to the IRGC Chief. On Iran State TV. He proclaimed the need to "chop off Trump's hand...slit Netanyahu's throat...annihilate Israel."

But Jabbari went much further than that, led by the woman interviewing him. She refers to what she claims are the over 1,000 casualties suffered in Israel:

Not to be outdone, the general goes on to brag that every single Iranian missile penetrates Israel's defenses:

The interviewer is not finished. She goes on to claim that the whole world supports Iran:

She then goes on to claim unanimous world support not only for Iran to have a nuclear program, but also for Iran to have a nuclear bomb:

Watch the whole video on MEMRI.

Iran is going into propaganda overdrive to save face as it agrees to Trump's ceasefire, similar to the missiles it fired at the US army base in Qatar--after giving advance warning.

We are only at the very beginning stages of this ceasefire, but considering the numerous benefits not only to Israel but to the region as a whole, Iran's neighbors can afford to be generous and allow its face-saving measures. Once the agreement takes hold, the focus can turn to Hamas and its hostages.

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Israel's brilliance changed the Middle East, and the entire world, for the better. What happens next?

This video clip, of the late IRGC General Gholamali Rashid speaking in 2021, is going around:

May God have mercy upon the martyr Hajj Qasem Soleimani. Three months before his martyrdom, at a meeting of the Khatam Al-Alanbiya HQ, with the commanders of the armed forces, he said: ...'I have assembled for you six armies outside of Iran's territory, and I have created a corridor 1,500km long and 1,000km wide, all the way to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. In this corridor, there are six religiously devout and popular divisions. Any enemy that decides to fight against the Islamic Revolution, and against the sacred regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran, will have to go through these six armies. It won't be able to do so.

'One army is in Lebanon. It is called Hizbullah. Another army is in Palestine, and it is called Hamas and the Islamic Jihad. One army is in Syria. Another army is in Iraq, and is called the PMU, and another army is in Yemen and is called Ansar Allah [Houthis.]

'This has created deterrence in the service of our dear Iran. ...The Islamic Republic of Iran possesses two elements of power: The first is a powerful armed force which is ready for battle, and prepared to defend from within Iran's territory against any foreign invader, and the second is a regional force outside of Iran's territory.'

This was Iran's proxy strategy, and Israel managed to defeat it almost singlehandedly. The Shia Crescent is broken.

Hezbollah's military might and willingness to use it has been severely degraded, both by losing in its war last year with Israel and by the Lebanese government and people asserting control for the first time in decades over a foreign militia that is controlled by Iran. This contributed significantly to the fall of Syria. This allowed Israel to directly attack Iran without fear of Iran's proxies shooting tens of thousands of missiles at its population centers, which was the major limiting factor in the past. Israel's total decapitation of Iran's air defenses and complete control over Iran's skies dissuaded the Iraqi and Yemeni proxies from doing much more than rhetorical support for Iran. And the US showing its support for Israel in the most spectacular way dashed the hopes of Iran that the two countries were at loggerheads.

Against the backdrop of this speech, the accomplishments of the IDF are not only spectacular but miraculous. Israel made "shock and awe" a truly workable strategy: the previous tactic of ending wars in an ambiguous way only emboldened the Islamists, but Israel's ability to defeat their enemies not only militarily but psychologically has stunned the world: assassinating enemy leaders, showing unimagined intelligence incredible integration of intelligence and air power, unprecedented use of technology.

Not least is Israel's consistent defiance of the so-called experts and national leaders who thought that none of this was possible. Israel realizes that the diplomacy that the West insists is the only way to stop conflict is itself a weapon in the hands of actors like Iran. Israel's willingness to stand up to international pressure is a major part of its stunning victory.

October 7 was the low point in Israel's history. But it learned its lessons incredibly quickly.

And it now comes full circle: Hamas, while weakened, remained a threat as long as Iran could fund it and rebuild it. Whether the US will quietly work towards regime change or not (and Trump's suggestion that it might probably also had a major effect on Iran's accepting a ceasefire), Iran's position as a regional power has been dealt a major blow. Israel can be a little more flexible about Hamas continuing to exist in some form when it knows that it has no easy path to strengthen again. Hamas and Islamic Jihad have effectively lost their main patron, and it is not so clear that Turkey or Qatar will step in to fill that vacuum.

The ramifications of Iran's defeat go beyond Israel.

Russia had been a strategic and military partner with Iran, but it stayed out of this war. Iran's ability to provide Russia with drones has probably been severely impacted.

China had invested a great deal of its Belt and Road Initiative into the Shia Crescent, which projects its power to the Mediterranean. The new Syrian government, focused on reconstruction, has signaled openness to China but is hedging by seeking Western and Gulf aid, limiting BRI prospects in the near term. China also gets much of its oil from Iran at a discount, although that does not seem to be in jeopardy at this moment. China, by concentrating on economic soft power, is much more adaptable to new circumstances. I expect China to put a great deal of effort into spying on Israel to try to steal Israel's military technology it has used in these wars and to defend itself against those technologies. Israel's military victories make authoritarian regimes nervous.

The biggest wildcard is the Gulf states. While they have been hedging their bets between Iran and the West, between the whiplash in policy changes from Bush to Obama to Trump to Biden to Trump, the tend to gravitate towards the "strong horse" and that is clearly Israel and the US, despite domestic opposition to Israel. I am not sure Saudi Arabia will rush into the Abraham Accords. While Gulf states may deepen under-the-radar ties with Israel, their hedging - balancing U.S. security with Chinese economic partnerships - will shape their response and influence Russia and China’s regional strategies.

Israel's achievement are remarkable. Donald Trump's instincts to stay away from foreign entanglements means that Israel, whether it wants to be or not, is now the unquestioned regional superpower. Let's hope that its diplomatic moves in the coming months and years are as brilliant as its military moves have been.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

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.@UNRWA "Palestine Refugee" status: You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave

I have noted many times that UNRWA has no cessation rules for its "refugees" meaning, it is literally impossible for a UNRWA "refugee" to lose that status. they can become citizens of Western nations; they can be native born children of billionaires in theUS, they can be members of Congress - but UNRWA still counts them as refugees.

In fact, I made this post exactly ten years ago to describe the difference between UNRWA and a real refugee agency:

Mo Ghaoul, a naturalized American citizen, went to UNRWA to ask for two things: one, how to register his American-born child as a "refugee," and the other is how to delist himself as a refugee.

1. Registering my child:

They asked for a certified birth certificate and other paperwork (the person handling it was on break).
I didn’t push. Said I’d consider.
I was encouraged to register ; there's a $50/child incentive.
[But this "bonus" is rare; most people get nothing. When it does happen, it’s like a once-a-year Christmas gift.]

2. Removing refugee status:

I asked to strike my refugee records. They said:

“You can go to the Palestinian Ministry of Social Development to remove your national data. But here at UNRWA, we’ll just update your nationality.”

I pushed back:

I’m naturalized. I still hold a Palestinian Authority passport, and I do not want to remove my Palestinian registration just that I no longer identify as a refugee.

Their reply?

“We have no process to delete records. Why remove it? It doesn’t harm you.”

I explained my reasons, but the answer was the same. There’s no form, no request, no path.

They just said: Let it go.
(Kindly, but clearly unsure themselves as they’re local employees.)

It's nice to know that when I couldn't find cessation clauses in UNRWA documentation, it was because they don't exist.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

06/23 Links Pt2: Tyrannical Regimes and the Westerners Who Love Them; ‘Jew hatred is a form of ideological brain worms’; Israeli economy defies war fears as Tel Aviv stocks surge to record highs

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: Tyrannical Regimes and the Westerners Who Love Them

Iranian actress and activist Nazanin Boniadi has issued a heartfelt plea to the Western protest class that I fear will fall on deaf ears. Just as the Palestinians who have made it out of Gaza and can speak freely tried, in vain, to convince the anti-Zionist demonstrators to not lionize Hamas, so are Iranian democracy activists learning about the Western fascination and identification with tyrannical regimes.

The Iranian regime “unleashes its fury, first and foremost, on its own people,” Boniadi told PBS’s Newshour. The regime has shut down Internet access across Iran and has been arresting dissidents to ensure that those who want freedom cannot organize against the government while it is weak. Therefore “we have to separate the Islamic Republic from Iran because most of the Iranian people believe [the regime] is an occupying force.”

She closed with a plea: “I urge Westerners, please, if you want to stand for Iran and the Iranian people and their sovereignty, please don’t conflate that with the Islamic Republic’s sovereignty, they are two different things. Do not raise the Islamic Republic’s flag in your rallies. That is a slap in the face to every dissident, every Iranian who has risked everything for freedom.”

Yet of course this weekend there were those very Islamic Republic of Iran flags on the streets of New York City. The flags of Hamas and Hezbollah—which are also, by the way, Islamic Republic of Iran flags, technically—were replaced by the logo of a tyrannical regime in Tehran. In London, where Boniadi grew up, Islamic Republic flags intermingled with large signs displaying the face of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the words “choose the right side of history.”

To the protesters in the West, the “right side of history” is the unrelenting oppression and repression of the Iranian people.

Just how upside-down is the world of campus-style activism can be seen in another sign going around the world of “pro-Palestinian” activism. Students for Justice in Palestine, the overarching organizing arm of the Hamas support network on campus, has been promoting a new line: “The Empire Will Fall: From Gaza to Tehran.”

This is meant to evoke both places as graveyards of Western capitalist and militarist “imperialism,” but I had to pause for a moment to make sure I was reading it right. Because the empire that runs from Gaza to Tehran (or the reverse) is falling. But it’s certainly not an American one.

Brendan O'Neill: The ‘Forever War’ we should really be worried about

The absolution of Iran by both leftists and rightists speaks to the wholesale evacuation of moral principle from the ‘anti-war’ position. What poses as ‘anti-imperialism’ today is often just anti-Westernism: a politics of grating historical guilt and showy self-loathing that views the wicked West as the author of every global calamity and nations like Iran as the hapless NPCs of world affairs. Ironically, there’s the pungent whiff of racial infantilism in these hot takes. Non-Western nations are reduced to child-like entities, so morally primitive that they lack the capacity to take responsibility for what they do. There is nothing ‘progressive’ in this imperious paternalism that feverishly demonises the nations of the West and acquits the Jew-killers of the East.

Handwringing abounds over Trump’s strikes on Iran and the possibility that this is yet another ‘Forever War’. It remains to be seen whether America’s strikes turn into something bigger, something more destabilising. But what worries me right now is the blindness of political actors across the West to the true Forever War, the Forever War that started this current war. That is, the war of Iran against the Jewish nation; the war of Islamism against the Jews; the war of tyrannical theocracy against democracy.

For the 46 years of its existence, the Islamic Republic has been devoted to the destruction of the Jewish State. Its military policy, education system and annual Quds Day are infused with this grim dream of annihilating the ‘Zionist regime’. Iranian children are taught to hate Israel. The Israeli flag is set alight on official parades. The proxies of Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis are funded and trained to the end of attacking Israel and slaughtering its people. Iran backed Hamas throughout the Second Intifada when it vaporised young Israelis in discotheques and pizza restaurants, and in the run-up to 7 October when it visited such fascist horrors upon southern Israel. There’s your Forever War – not Trump’s 18-hour mission against Iran’s nuclear sites but Iran’s almost 50-year mission to lay apocalyptic waste to the world’s only Jewish nation.

It’s not clear whether America’s strikes will temper hostilities in the Middle East or destabilise things further. But, at this moment, there are other morally pressing questions to ask. Why do so many in the West fail to take seriously the threat posed by Iranian tyranny? Why are they so blasé about the ceaseless targeting of Israel by Jew-hating militias? Why do so many of our educated seem to sympathise more with the bigots of Tehran than with the Jews of those kibbutzim decimated by Tehran’s barbarous emissaries? That some in the West have shed more tears over the destruction of Iranian infrastructure than they did over the destruction of the 70-year-old Jew Ofra Kedar shines the harshest light on our moral crisis.

Gad Saad: ‘Jew hatred is a form of ideological brain worms’

Since 7 October 2023, anti-Semitism has exploded across the West. Violent attacks on synagogues and ‘hate marches’ against Israel are now a feature of life in every Western capital. The well educated and woke in the cultural elite seem especially vulnerable to this dangerous way of thinking. New life has been breathed into the oldest hatred.

Gad Saad – evolutionary psychologist and author of The Parasitic Mind – witnessed a similar surge in anti-Semitism when he grew up in Lebanon in the 1970s. He sat down with spiked’s Fraser Myers to discuss what’s gone wrong in the West and how we can confront the mindset that produces this poison. You can watch the full conversation here.

Fraser Myers: What resonances are there between your upbringing in Lebanon and what we’re experiencing in the West today?

Gad Saad: I was among the last remaining Jews in Lebanon in the mid-1970s. Most of my extended family had already left – maybe they read the writing on the wall better than my parents did. Or maybe my parents read the writing on the wall and chose to ignore it.

It was a brutally nasty civil war, where former neighbours became arch enemies. During the first year, we saw things that no human being should see or experience. My parents took several return trips to Lebanon after we had emigrated to Canada, and on one of them, they were kidnapped by Fatah. So many of the things that we see today – the kidnapping of hostages and so on – are things that I lived through in my childhood.

Myers: When you were younger, one of the boys you were at school with said he wanted to be a ‘Jew killer’ when he grew up.

Saad: That’s right. In The Parasitic Mind, I’m trying to demonstrate that Jew hatred is not something that just arose as part of the civil war. When I was five years old, the president of Egypt, Gamal Abdel Nasser, died. The people were lamenting in the streets in Beirut, screaming, ‘Death to Jews, death to Jews’. When I turned to my mother to ask why, she said, ‘Keep your head down’. That was the first time I saw what endemic Jew hatred looked like.

06/23 Links Pt1: Trump announces Israel-Iran ceasefire; Iran Brought This On Itself; True stories of espionage, sabotage—and Divine Providence.

From Ian:

Jake Wallis Simons: Trump has just secured the best chance for global peace

Thank God somebody hasn’t forgotten their courage. In civil society, meanwhile, we were yesterday treated to the embarrassing spectacle of crowds protesting in London in support of the Ayatollah. Women who enjoyed equal rights and men who took free expression for granted raised placards showing the face of the tyrant, along with the slogan, “choose the right side of history”. It is tempting to conclude that Britain is lost.

As I wrote in these pages last week, this is Israel’s century. The countries that will not only survive but thrive will be those with conviction in their values and the courage and resilience to defend them. Now is the time to rouse ourselves from the post-Cold War torpor of identity politics and self-hatred. Yet our bankrupt leaders refuse to release us. Israel and the United States can hold their heads high today, while we must hang ours in shame.

How must the airmen of the RAF feel as they watch this great victory unfold from the sidelines? What about all the decent Britons? Oh, for the chance to feel proud of our country again. So much for us. This morning, however, we should spare a thought for the Israeli people.

Over the last one-and-a-half years, they have suffered trauma, fear, uncertainty and bereavement, not to mention the hatred of the world. Hundreds of thousands of men from all walks of life have served on the frontlines and many have failed to return home. The propaganda against them has been overwhelming. Yet the country has refused to be defeated.

Even after more than 600 days of war in Gaza, when Netanyahu ordered the attacks on Iran, public support stood at more than 90 per cent, despite knowing that life would be horribly disrupted, missiles would fall on their homes and some of their people would die.

While European leaders wagged their fingers and quivered in their beds, the citizens of the Middle East’s only democracy demonstrated what may be achieved in a country that has not discarded its old loves of flag, faith and family, as we have done. This is a lesson for the West either to learn or to ignore. As the Zionist leader Ze’ev Jabotinsky put it: “We were not created in order to teach morals and manners to our enemies.”

For our own sakes, however, and for those of our children, we must learn this lesson fast. The centrist fundamentalism that has so disfigured our societies since the Cold War has run its course. Those who persist in pursuing it – Starmer, Macron and the rest – have been outstripped by history, even if they do not yet know it. Israel’s pride is our shame. This is Jerusalem’s century and we must decide where to plant our feet.

Eli Lake: What Happens If Iran’s Regime Collapses?

Mariam Memarsadeghi, a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and the founder and director of the Cyrus Forum for Iran’s Future, also sees very little hope in a democratic transition as Israel wages war in Iran. “The opposition, unfortunately, is not ready,” she said. “I don’t like saying that but it’s the truth. Pahlavi talks about having a plan to maintain security and stability, but I just don’t see how that can be possible. At the very least, he is going to need foreign help.”

That foreign help will not be coming from America. Despite the president’s MIGA post, there is no serious conversation inside the Trump administration about another nation-building war in the Middle East. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Sunday told reporters that America’s war aims did not include “regime change.” As one Trump administration official told me, “There is no chance we go in for nation-building when this thing is done.”

For different reasons, Israel will also not be stabilizing a post-Khamenei Iran. Israel would welcome a democratic Iran but will settle for a weakened one. The Jewish state is far too small—with a population of just over 10 million—to put significant boots on the ground in a country of more than 90 million people if Khamenei was deposed. Nonetheless, its intelligence service, Mossad, has cultivated networks now being used for targeting nuclear and military sites and other kinds of sabotage. Two former U.S. national security officials who worked closely with Israel while in government said those networks can be repurposed to support an Iranian uprising should the need arise.

Mark Dubowitz, the CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told The Free Press, “What is going to get Iranians back to the streets in great numbers will be support from the West; that means Israel. The security apparatus is weakened. There is an internet blackout. It’s early days. I think the opportunity is there.”

Dave Wurmser, a former national security council staffer in Trump’s first term who also worked at the Pentagon and State Department under George W. Bush, said Israeli war planners were aware that a byproduct of the campaign could “destabilize the regime to the point where it could fall.”

Some former U.S. intelligence analysts, however, see the prospects of a democratic uprising in the near term to be slim. Jonathan Panikoff, the former deputy national intelligence officer for the Middle East, told me that even if Iran’s supreme leader was taken out, the regime may not collapse. “I would love nothing more than democracy in Iran, but it’s much more likely that you get IRGC-istan,” he said, a reference to the Revolutionary Guard Corps that has amassed extraordinary domestic power over the last 25 years. “At the end of the day, guns trump words. We’ve seen that play out in 2009, in 2017 in the Woman, Life, Freedom movement. It’s more likely it’s a different kind of authoritarian state, a military junta with a fig leaf government, a Pakistan on steroids.”

Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former Iranian targets officer for the CIA, also said he was not expecting a democratic transition in Iran in the near term. “I would expect some form of anarchy; that is always the case in Iran when the central government goes down,” he said. One of the problems for the internal opposition is that “the regime has done an excellent job of locating individuals who have charisma and neutralizing them. The opposition is there, but it’s not cohesive,” Gerecht added. That said, he stressed that there were too many factors that were unknown to really predict what would come next if Khamenei was toppled.

The most salient factor that will determine if a democratic transition in Iran is possible is how many mid-level officers in the internal security agencies of the state, like the Basij militia and the intelligence ministry, are willing to break ranks with their superiors and refuse to fire on protesters.

Gerecht said that the apparatus that arrested and killed demonstrators in the Woman, Life, Freedom demonstrations in 2022 and 2023 will likely carry out such orders. Sazegara, the former deputy prime minister, is optimistic that at least some of them can be turned. “Our strategy is, as much as possible, to support dissidents inside the IRGC and the army and the intelligence services to join the people,” he said. But any chance for such an uprising will have to wait until the war is over.

Seth Mandel: Iran Brought This On Itself

On January 28, 2024, Iran killed three American soldiers on a base in Jordan, injuring more than 40. On October 19, 2023, an Iranian militia in Yemen engaged the USS Carney destroyer in what the Wall Street Journal described as “the most intense combat a U.S. Navy warship had seen in the better part of a century, shooting down more than a dozen drones and four fast-flying cruise missiles.”

That “10-hour engagement” came, of course, just 12 days after Iran’s militia in Gaza invaded Israel, murdering 1,200—of which 41 were Americans.

Lost in Iran’s modern slaughter was the fact that October 2023 coincided with the 40th anniversary of a kind of villainous origin story for Tehran: the October 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut, which killed 241 American servicemembers. In the intervening decades, that killing continued. But the bookends of 1983 and 2023 served as fitting brackets for a period of history run red with the blood of Americans. Iran’s attacks—as noted above—didn’t end. But Tehran had overplayed its hand and set in motion a great American backlash, leading to President Trump’s history-making order to strike at the heart of the Iranian nuclear-weapons program.

The Iranian threat, in other words, has not subsided. American civilians and soldiers live in a world made more dangerous by Iran’s constant plotting to harm them.

And so the idea that bombing a facility in Iran that had been evacuated of people but not of weaponizable nuclear material was an “escalation” is risible. More absurd still is the belief, apparently held by a growing number of Democratic politicians and an endless supply of Republican social-media jugheads, that Trump is hereby solely responsible for future Iranian militia threats to Americans abroad.

“Donald Trump shoulders complete and total responsibility for any adverse consequences that flow from his unilateral military action,” announced Hakeem Jeffries, the highest ranking Democrat in the House.

Jeffries is therefore predicting Iranian violence against Americans while at the same time freeing Iran from culpability for that violence. This man intends to be the next speaker of the House.

Adam Smith, ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, had this to say: “The path that the President has chosen risks unleashing a wider war in the region that is both incredibly unpredictable and treacherous and that threatens the safety and security of the United States, Israel, and ultimately the world.”

That statement is somewhat more reasonable than Jeffries’s, but again—this is the path Iran has chosen. Additionally, it will not make the world a more dangerous place than it would have been with a nuclear-armed Iran. Lastly, the presumptuousness to lecture Israelis on their own safety, especially in this case when they are telling us overwhelmingly the opposite of what Smith says, is poor form—as is, of course, blaming America for Iran’s aggression.

True stories of espionage, sabotage—and Divine Providence.

In the aftermath of yet another stunning Israeli operation inside Iran, many are wondering: how does the Mossad keep pulling this off?

How does a tiny nation, roughly the size of New Jersey and under constant existential threat, manage to penetrate the most hostile regime in the world time and again—slipping past the Revolutionary Guard, sabotaging nuclear ambitions, and rescuing lives in ways that would make a Hollywood screenwriter blush, or seem too far-fetched even for the big screen?

Of course, the professionalism, ingenuity, and sheer courage of Israel’s agents—combined with the cutting-edge innovation of the Startup Nation—play a central role. But from a Jewish perspective, there’s another truth too essential to ignore: hashgacha pratit, Divine providence—the belief that God guides history not only in sweeping arcs but also through intimate, hidden threads. And sometimes, the outcomes are so precise, so improbable, that we’re left with no plausible explanation—at least not one that leaves God out of the story.

Much of what we know about this shadow war comes from The Secret War with Iran by veteran Israeli journalist and intelligence expert Ronen Bergman. Drawing on hundreds of sources and interviews, his research offers a rare window into the secret victories that shaped the last four decades.

Below are five real-life operations, stretching from the Islamic Revolution in 1979 to the nuclear age, that show the fingerprints of both human brilliance and something greater. 1. The Escape from Iran (1979–1981): Smuggling a Community to Safety
After the fall of the Shah in 1979, Iran’s Jews faced a terrifying new reality. The Islamic regime labeled Zionism a capital offense, executed Jewish leader Habib Elghanian, and sowed fear among the country’s ancient Jewish community.

In response, Israeli intelligence launched a quiet, high-stakes operation to help Jews flee. Agents and collaborators smuggled thousands across borders using forged documents, bribes, and covert routes through Pakistan and Turkey. In one case, a rescuer even posed as a senior Pakistani official to escort families to safety.

Roughly 10,000 Jews escaped through these clandestine efforts, while tens of thousands more fled via informal means. To protect those still inside Iran, Israel kept its role secret.

It wasn’t just a logistical feat—it was a modern-day Exodus. In a time of chaos and persecution, Jewish lives were saved by a mix of courage, ingenuity, and, perhaps, something greater moving quietly behind the scenes.

Stupid statistic of the day: @SKWAWKBOX claims "377,000 Gazans murdered, half children!"

Sqwawkbox, a British left wing news site that brags about how trustworthy it is, has a scoop!

Wow! 377,000 killed, and half of them kids! And these are Israel's own figures!

This is something!

The proof it brings comes from here:

Yaakov Garb’s report for Harvard Dataverse has analysed the Israeli military’s own data and combined these with careful spatial mapping to reveal a demographic horror story: almost 400,000 people – at least 377,000 – have disappeared from Gaza’s pre-genocide population of 2.227 million, reducing it to 1.85 million when measured for the study.

Does that report say what the authors are so breathlessly claiming?

Not at all.

The report discusses the GHF attempt to feed Gazans. it doesn't mention demographics or deaths or missing people or anything like that at all.

But it has a map that shows what it says are Israel's estimates of how many Gazans are in three concentrated areas of Gaza:

The morons at Sqwawkbox took the three grey areas, added them up, subtracted them from some estimate of Gaza's pre-war population that they claim says it was 2.27 million people, and voila! 377,000 people are missing and therefore must have been murdered, and half of them must be kids because, you know, Israel kills Gazans randomly!

Where to begin with this stupidity?

First of all, the three areas don't represent all of Gaza's population. Plenty of people refuse to move to the areas Israel wants them to move to - there are lots of articles in Arab media about their "steadfastness" in refusing to move. Assuming that the estimates here are accurate, they are only of the people inside the areas, not all of Gaza. We have no idea how many tens of thousands of Gazans live outside those three areas.

Secondly, the estimate of a pre-war Gaza population of 2.27 million is a bit suspect. According to CIA Factbook, the estimated population in Gaza in 2023 was less than 2.1 million. Poof! There go 127,000 dead people.

Thirdly, in the months before the Rafah crossing was closed, according to Palestinian estimates, some 100,000 Gazans managed to escape to Egypt (by paying exorbitant fees.) There go another 100,000 supposed victims.

I just resurrected over 110,000 children. No need to thank me.

This is the dumbest reporting I have ever seen in Western media, and that is saying something. But when you hate Jews (I'm sorry, ,"Zionists,") an excuse to exaggerate their evil is a righteous cause.

Where are all of these dead bodies, according to the geniuses of Sqwawkbox?

The Gaza health ministry only counts bodies recovered and brought to a hospital. Victims buried under rubble or blown apart with their few remains gathered into plastic bags are not included.

Except that - they are. The Gaza health ministry puts out an online survey where Gazans can register their missing and presumed dead relatives, and it counts them in its total.

Maybe Sqwawkbox believes that Israel uses ray guns that vaporize thousands of Gazans, leaving no trace? Because that is what officials from Hamas and from Gaza's much heralded Health Ministry - lovingly quoted by mainstream media - have claimed.

They'll believe anything that can be twisted to demonize Israel. Because that is what "trustworthy" journalists apparently do.

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

Israeli media occasionally reports on the arrests of citizens of Israel who are suspected Iranian spies.

These stories are concerning and important. Why would an Israeli citizen choose to spy for Iran?

No doubt, some are motivated by money, or the sense of self-importance, or simply the thought that what they are doing is pretty much public information anyway, so there is not much moral hazard in doing so. It seems unlikely that too many Israeli citizens either hate Israel or love Iran so much to have an ideology where they want to see an Islamist state destroy Israel.

But part of the reason Israel's airstrikes in Tehran and elsewhere are so effective is because their intelligence is superb. A major reason for that is that there are plenty of Iranians who want to see their regime replaced.

Even this morning Israel is pounding specific sites in Tehran. Even today Israel is assassinating major IRGC figures, people who know they are targets and are no doubt taking precautions or hiding - and still being targeted successfully.

Some of this is because Israel has excellent signals intelligence, following cell phones around; part of it is because Israel has great artificial intelligence capabilities that allow it to take millions of data points that by themselves are of little value but in the aggregate indicate with a high degree of certainty where specific people are. Also Israel has done an incredible job integrating all aspects of its security apparatus so that new intelligence information becomes actionable within seconds or minutes, not weeks.

But a great deal comes from ordinary Iranians on the ground who are feeding these data points to Israel, who see several people enter an apartment who look unfamiliar, who recognize unusual activity where they live, or even those who are integral parts of the Iranian security establishment who have direct knowledge of what is going on.

Iran has a competent spy agency. No doubt they have hacked into some Israeli systems and almost certainly they have access to street and doorbell cameras. But human intelligence is the most important, especially during wartime when decisions must be made quickly, and Israel's advantage in human intelligence is in no small part because Iranians do not want to live under their current regime.

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Aleksandr Dugin, the Russian ultranationalist often dubbed "Putin’s philosopher," is not just a dangerous ideologue. He is also a conspiracy-minded antisemite obsessed with Israel, and his ravings reflect a recurring truth: that Jews and the Jewish state are seen as existential threats to totalitarian ideologies – precisely because Jewish values stand in moral opposition to them.

The New York Times introduced its readers to Dugin in 2022, describing him as “Putin’s philosopher” who has been a leading advocate for conquest of Ukraine.

His thinking builds on ideas of “Eurasianism,” that Russia is a distinct civilization that should forge a continent-spanning state along the lines of its former empire but without the Communist ideology of the Soviet Union. Jane Burbank, an emeritus history professor at New York University, has written that in Mr. Dugin’s view, after the Soviet Union’s “sellout” to the West in the 1990s, “Russia could revive in the next phase of global combat and become a ‘world empire.’”

It turns out that "Putin's philosopher" is an antisemite who seems obsessed with the idea that Israel is run by crazed messianic Jews who are hellbent on creating a Greater Israel.

In a recent podcast, he said, "Half of Israel is pure liberal trash. The other half are cheerful Zionists who want to blow up Al-Aqsa."

His insistence that Israel will blow up Al Aqsa is a recurrent theme in his writings - see, for example, this article from December where he is certain that Ben Gvir will blow up the mosque to create a Greater Israel.

After Israel assassinated Hassan Nasrallah, Dugin not only said that this was a precursor to Israel's destruction of Al Aqsa but also he threw in a theory where Jews throughout the world form a network to ensure Israel's ultimate victory:

Israel, thanks to the support of the collective West and using its latest technological tools (and they have been and remain pioneers in the field of digital technologies), operates very effectively, precisely, and cohesively. And it is very difficult to imagine how one could respond to this, especially considering that many people from various countries, who are at the forefront of high-tech processes, could at any moment turn out to be Israeli citizens and, together with their codes and technologies, head to Israel.

In other words, Israel relies on a vast network of supporters, people who share the principles of political and religious Zionism in all countries of the world. This gives Israel a major advantage as a networked structure, not just a state.

It is difficult to miss the echo of the “Elders of Zion” hoax in Dugin’s fantasy of a worldwide network of Jews, controlling global tech and politics to ensure messianic supremacy.

Now, according to Arab media, Dugin thinks Israel might use the conflict with Iran as the excuse it has been looking for (for over a century!) to finally destroy Al Aqsa. “I don’t rule out that the Zionist leadership’s debauchery could reach the point where they blow up Al-Aqsa Mosque and then claim that an Iranian missile hit the mosque by mistake,” he said.

Given that Dugin believes that the Russian Federation’s destiny is to become a holy empire along tsarist lines, he views Jews and Israel as implacable obstacles to the fulfillment of his dream.

Dugin’s apocalyptic vision isn’t just about Israel, but about what Israel represents: a stubborn, moral, covenantal civilization that refuses to bow to imperial destiny. That’s why antisemites of every political persuasion, from Marx to Hitler to Dugin, always converge on the idea that Jews are the problem. Because when your ideology depends on domination, Jews are always in the way.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)