10/30 Links Pt2: Douglas Murray: the Left’s Palestine 'fetish' – and why the West can still be saved; Pelosi calls Mamdani, El-Sayed's past comments on Israel 'concerning' and 'wrong'

From Ian:

Maxim Shrayer: Up (and Down) In Michigan

I would submit that the phenomenon of Jewish support for El-Sayed and other openly anti-Israel candidates or elected officials in the Democratic party does not logically or rationally stem from issues affecting Israel or the Jewish diaspora. Rather, it exemplifies the phenomenon I would like to call the “Jewish nostalgia for an American political home” in the Democratic party. Fueling this nostalgia is the anxiety that Jews no longer influence mainstream American politics. Various “Jewish cases” for the election of El-Sayed lay hopelessly bare a longing for the time when Jewish in America rhymed with progressive if not socialist, when Jews were civil libertarians if they weren’t gangsters (sometimes both), and when the Democratic party was a political home for the vast majority of America’s Jews.

This nostalgia also stems from a chronic reluctance to recognize that the Democratic party is becoming more and more a party of phantoms of socialism who either refuse to learn from twentieth-century history (especially Soviet history) or are too ignorant to do so. This Jewish Democratic nostalgia, like most other forms of nostalgia, does not address issues or remedy the present. It is a coping mechanism for the ones who have experienced political and social bereavement. Countless are the Jewish losses in America of the first quarter of the 21st century, and the biggest political loss is the Democratic party’s support of Israel. (That a Dominican-American congressman from the Bronx and a maverick Pennsylvania senator—rather than the Jews in the house or senate Democratic leadership—are the staunchest Democratic supporters of Israel speaks volumes about the predicament.)

Calls for the creation of an anti-MAGA Jewish coalition feel like an eleventh-hour performance of Jewish nostalgia for political influence. Such nostalgia has its deeper origins in the late 1960s, when Jewish activism ceased to be inherently Jewish as American Jews had achieved the status quo and overcome de facto discrimination while the still young Israel enjoyed national popularity and antisemitism was becoming marginal or subterranean.

You may wonder why the one writing these lines—a former refusenik, a Bostonian, an author and college professor—is so taken with this year’s Michigan Senate election. The answer is that through the lens of the Michigan Senate race I see a story of the impending Jewish divorce from the Democratic party and thus a refraction of my own political journey in America.

Shedding illusions is hard, and its even harder to do so when nostalgia performs a siren’s song. I speak from the experience of my family members in the former USSR, Israel, and America. When I reference the pain and pleasure of shedding of one’s political illusions, I also speak of the nearly forty years it’s taken to dispel my own. I’ve never once voted Republican, but over the past two years I have realized I can no longer vote Democratic. I detest Trump and will not vote for him or his menials, but I cannot give my vote to those who refuse to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state and those who actively seek Israel’s undoing. This acknowledgment of political homelessness, a particularly difficult predicament for a Jewish immigrant in America, brings me to three closing reflections on the subject of the Senate election in Michigan.

One: Learn from the legacy of Jewish refuseniks. I have previously argued that refuseniks were the last great Jewish political movement in Diaspora. The purpose of the refusenik movement was to free Jews from the Soviet bondage. Ours was an activism on behalf of Jews that also made the world a better place, not the other way around. There is a direct lesson for today’s Jewish voters torn between their past allegiance to the Democratic party and the growing threat of its left wing. American Jews tend to celebrate their participation in American progressive politics while failing to see a powerful alternative in the activism of Jewish refuseniks. Would that today’s American Jews abandon the idea of political activism for the sake of others—including those who, like El-Sayed, openly articulate their opposition to Israel and Zionism.

Two: Putting an enemy of Jewish selfhood in the U.S. Congress can never be a Jewish goal. El-Sayed as a Democratic contender who exploits the climate of Trumpian America to empower himself is less troubling than the very idea of a candidate running against Israel. In this sense, El-Sayed is also a cipher for the radicalized left of the Democratic party: a younger, less Soviet (and more Baathist) muscular version of Senator Bernie Sanders. Explaining why he recently gave one million dollars to El-Sayed’s campaign (following the party lead of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez), Senator Sanders stated: “I was outraged … that AIPAC … dumped 9 million dollars in support of Mike Rogers. … And what AIPAC wants is continued US financial support for the Netanyahu government in Israel, which, in my view, is a genocidal government … and a continuation of the war in Iran … . AIPAC and Netanyahu want to continue that war with Trump [sic], and I think we’ve got to end that war. Abdul believes we’ve got to end that war.”

Make no mistake: a vote for El-Sayed is a vote against Israel, not a vote against the Netanyahu government. Saying this during the Israeli elections that may well see Netanyahu defeated is especially revealing.

Three: A vote is not a matzevah—whatever else it says besides the pei-nun and one’s name in the past (political) life. A vote is not to be made out of nostalgia for a bygone political era. Do not vote to unearth your political past or your ancestral memories of Jewish activism on behalf of civil libertarianism. Those memories had been put to their final rest in the 1970s. Rather than submitting empty ballots of Jewish dignity, perhaps we should pour what remains of Jewish activism, Jewish influence and Jewish resources into a third party, moderate, centrist, founded on traditional liberal values? Or, perhaps instead America Jews should look beyond these shores toward a new great aliyah—the 21st century American aliyah.

I will stop here—out of nostalgia for the illusion of Jewish unity. In closing, I turn to Isaac Babel, that great poet of Jewish upheaval. Babel has a short story from 1913 titled “Childhood. At Grandmother’s.” This early gem features a Jewish boy’s weekly Shabbat visits with his grandmother. She feeds him abundant meals with gefilte fish and fruit compote and teaches him about life in her imperfect Russian with an admixture of Yiddish and Polish. I used to think that American Jews were done loving their children and grandchildren so much that they would break their hearts with harsh and cynical wisdom. Perhaps I was wrong. What this Odessan grandmother says to her grandson in the 1900s applies to the socio-political illusions of today’s Jewish voters who find themselves at the crossroads:
“’Learn,’ she suddenly speaks with power. ‘Learn, you will achieve everything—wealth and fame. You must know everything. All of them will fall and prostrate themselves before you. All must envy you. Do not have friends. Do not give them money. Do not give them your heart.’”

Month after thwarted flydubai attack, Israel issues stringent new rules for all airlines

A month after the attempted terrorist crashing of a flydubai flight bound for Tel Aviv from Dubai, Israeli authorities issued new, stringent directives on Thursday to both foreign and Israeli airlines, requiring them to submit crew information 48 hours prior to departure, amid other steps to bolster security.

The new directives require that any further updates regarding crew members are submitted during the check-in period and no later than two hours before takeoff, and that a final list be issued at takeoff. Bloomberg reported that the measures were ordered by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after a security review, and are intended to allow adequate time for background checks.

The directives come after a near-disaster on September 30 as flydubai Flight FZ1073 was en route from Dubai to Tel Aviv, when the copilot, Omani national Hamam al-Hammami, attacked the captain, Smit Machchhar, and attempted to crash the aircraft. The plane plunged thousands of feet before several Israeli passengers burst into the cockpit, whose door Machchhar had managed to open, immobilized the terrorist copilot and initially stabilized the plane.

Two off-duty pilots aboard the flight then took over the controls and made an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia before a replacement aircraft returned passengers to Tel Aviv.

Machchhar was seriously injured in the attack by Hammami, who struck him in the back of the head with an emergency axe.

The security requirements were issued by the National Center for Passenger Information Data Analysis, also known as Malan, a division within the Israel Tax Authority. The directives apply to all incoming and outgoing flights to and from Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport operated by all airlines, foreign and Israeli.

Non-Israeli carriers and Israeli airlines operating foreign aircraft flying in and out of Israel will henceforth be required to complete an online form with full details about pilots, cabin crew and passengers 48 hours before entering Israel, for review by the Israel Population and Immigration Authority.

The Immigration Authority will approve or reject requests to board passengers and crew members on flights entering Israel, departing from it, or passing through its territory.

The National Center for Passenger Information Data Analysis emphasized that the advance-notice period will give Israeli authorities more time to prepare than international practices generally allow and strengthen their ability to address potential security concerns.

Heroic flydubai captain and crew honored by UAE president

The captain and crew of the flydubai flight to Tel Aviv, which was attacked last month, were honored Tuesday by the president of the United Arab Emirates.

UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan awarded Indian pilot Smit Machchhar and the rest of the crew the First Class Order of Zayed II, one of the Gulf country’s top civilian honors, “in recognition of their courageous efforts to ensure the safety of passengers,” his office said.

The president praised the crew’s bravery and professionalism in protecting passengers during the attempted hijacking on September 30.

The Indian pilot, who has been recovering in an Abu Dhabi hospital after being attacked with a cockpit axe by his Omani co-pilot, attended the ceremony, with scars from his injuries still visible on his head and his arm in a cast.

Despite his severe injuries in the cockpit attack, he managed to open the door, allowing passengers to enter, tackle the assailant and take control of the aircraft.

He has been widely praised as a hero.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has invited him to light a torch at Israel’s Independence Day next year.

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10/30 Links Pt1: Herzog can secure his presidential legacy by bringing Netanyahu and Eisenkot together; Canadian author warns Bondi lessons being forgotten

From Ian:

Herzog can secure his presidential legacy by bringing Netanyahu and Eisenkot together

The politics of delegitimization and defamation, particularly the demonization of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by the Left, make the establishment of a broad Israeli government of repair an unlikely scenario.

Yet this is exactly what Israel needs now – the partnership in government of Netanyahu and one of his major rivals, say, the political parties led by Yashar head Gadi Eisenkot and/or Naftali Bennett – to together tackle Israel’s major challenges.

The question is: Who is going to disabuse both the Left and the Right of their belligerent, separatist, extremist dreams of establishing a one-sided government that relies on haredi (ultra-Orthodox) or Arab parties? Who is going to cajole Likud and Yashar and/or B’Yachad into a pseudo “unity” coalition government?

The answer, of course, should be the Israeli president. But I wonder whether President Isaac Herzog is up to the task.

Herzog comes from the Left (a former leader of the Labor Party), and he is already under pressure from his political home base to mandate and approve a narrow Eisenkot government based on an alliance with anti-Israel Islamists or anti-Zionist ultra-Orthodox Jews; a government that defiantly excludes Netanyahu.

The camp’s overriding priority is to dethrone Netanyahu under any circumstances and at any cost. This camp expects Herzog to play along; nay, they demand that he brandish his bully pulpit to legitimize a government that embraces Mansour Abbas and Prof. Yousef Jabareen, or alternatively Yakov Asher and Yitzhak Goldknopf.

Such a government would handcuff the IDF in fighting Palestinian enemies and kill the hope of recapturing the Negev from Bedouin mafia gangs, and it would quash any plan for drafting haredim into the IDF. But so what? In the view of the hard Left, terminating Netanyahu is the higher goal that makes anything and everything kosher.

Herzog needs to repel the pressures and demands of the hard Left and wedge the mainstream parties, the two or three largest in Knesset, into a governing coalition, uneasy and fractious as it may be.

It is not enough for Herzog to say that he “will do everything in his power to avoid a repeat election scenario.” He must actively agitate for a broad Zionist government. He should aggressively intervene in the political process beyond the usual presidential consultative role following elections.

Herzog should declare that he will give the mandate to form a government first and foremost only to a political party leader that is up-front committed to seeking unity as his priority plan of action. And then he should reject any proto-government coalition brought to him that is not broad-based; that is, contingent on fractional Arab or haredi parties.

Herzog can and should go further in making a broad-based government possible by getting into the nitty-gritty of the issues that stand in the way, from Netanyahu’s future (rotation in the prime minister’s post, a timetable for retirement from politics, and a pardon) to good governance (formation of a national commission of investigation into the October 7 disaster, judicial reform, settlement policy, and haredi draft).

Don’t tell me that this isn’t the role of the Israeli president and that he has no powers for such interposition. Indeed, it is not the president’s classic role, and legally he has no such powers.

Jonathan Tobin: Netanyahu is a realist about Israel’s foes, not a fear-monger

Moreover, Netanyahu is on firm ground in reminding Israeli voters that leaders and parties that campaign on pledges never to allow a Palestinian state or to accede to demands for concessions, including territorial withdrawals, often break their word.

That’s exactly what happened with Yitzhak Rabin when he was elected prime minister in 1992 and reassured voters that he would not negotiate with the Palestine Liberation Organization and its terrorist leader Yasser Arafat, let alone empower them in the territories. But then, he did exactly that.

In 2003, Ariel Sharon was re-elected as prime minister by ridiculing his Labor Party opponent for proposing to withdraw from Gaza. Then Sharon, too, carried out the same policy himself in the summer of 2005 by pulling every Israeli soldier, settler and settlement out of Gaza, thus setting in motion the train of events that led to the creation of a Hamas terror state there and the tragedy of Oct. 7.

Moreover, as Haaretz consoled its left-wing readership over the summer, Eisenkot may have declared that he won’t accept a Palestinian state largely in order to curry favor with the voters. But in doing so, he was, the newspaper said, “running away from what everyone knows he believes.” That is probably true. The former general’s statements while he was chief of staff and those made by his advisers all point to acceptance of the Oslo mindset about the imperative of Israeli territorial withdrawals and the creation of a Palestinian state.

Under the circumstances, it’s far from unreasonable for Netanyahu to point this out and to speculate about whether a government led by Eisenkot would resist the inevitable pressure from foreign governments—possibly including the United States once President Donald Trump leaves office in January 2029—for a Palestinian state.

Nor is it fear-mongering to point out that a repetition of Sharon’s catastrophic blunder of withdrawing from Gaza in the far larger and more strategic Judea and Samaria would raise the likelihood of more Oct. 7-style attacks on Israel. Hamas, which would be certain to seize control of a state from its corrupt and feeble Fatah Party rivals who currently control the Palestinian Authority, has promised as much.

Nor is Netanyahu conjuring up imaginary threats when he speaks of the need to finish the process of eliminating Hamas in Gaza and defeating the Islamist regime in Tehran. Israelis know all too well that their enemies are not figments of their imagination on which an unscrupulous prime minister is preying.

And he isn’t making things up when he describes the radicalism of both the Arab parties that did so well in this week’s vote.

Halbfinger is correct that Ra’am has worked hard to sell itself to Jewish voters as a reasonable partner that can be trusted to be loyal to the state while standing up for the interests of Arab voters. Israelis may be proud to live in a country where the Arab minority enjoys equal rights under the law. But even if he served in the government led by Naftali Bennet and Yair Lapid in 2021 and 2022, many, if not most Israelis know that its leader Mansour Abbas’s Islamists beliefs make it impossible to truly accept the legitimacy and permanence of a Jewish state. What’s more, they also know the larger Joint List won’t even pretend to give up their dreams of Israel’s eradication. That’s true even if they are willing, for the moment, to prop up a minority government that would end Netanyahu’s career, due to the fact that he is the greatest foe of those who wish for Israel’s destruction.

Should Eisenkot rely on them to keep a minority government in power outside of the cabinet or ask them to join it outright, he would be giving them an effective veto over future military action to defend Israel against Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis. Some on the left may think that’s a good idea. But in rejecting such a scenario, Netanyahu would not be exploiting fears as much as pointing out to Israelis that Eisenkot would be doing what the overwhelming majority of Israelis, regardless of who they voted for on Oct. 27, oppose.

The specter of the genocidal intent of Hamas and Iran, for which the atrocities of Oct. 7 were just the trailer for what they want to do to all of Israel, is no boogeyman that Netanyahu pulls out of his bag of tricks to scare Israelis. It is a clear and present danger that must be addressed by any government of Israel, no matter who is at its head, if it is not to betray the trust of its people.

A still dangerous neighborhood
If Israelis understand—their victories in the post-Oct. 7 war and the survival of the Abraham Accords, notwithstanding the global surge of antisemitism—that they still live in a dangerous neighborhood, it’s not because they are fearful. It’s because they have been paying attention to events and are able to judge what happens when their leaders succumb to the temptation of earning the respect of the Times and liberal pundits, and seek to trade “land for peace.” In each case, such policies were not only a betrayal of campaign promises but also wound up doing nothing more than trading territory for terror that led to the loss of thousands of Israeli lives.

If Netanyahu retains a large amount of support, despite the understandable fatigue with a prime minister who has held power for so long and the impulse to make him the sole scapegoat for Oct. 7, it is because Israelis respect and value his realism. For all of his faults and mistakes, he is still the only major Israeli leader of his era who did not fall prey to the magical thinking that led to Oslo and the Gaza withdrawal, and its betrayed promises of gaining peace in exchange for a Palestinian state that the Palestinians don’t want. Pointing this out isn’t scare tactics. It’s realism.

The prime minister’s critics should consider whether their desire to ignore or downplay the real threats to Israel is something worse than speaking to the fears of Israelis: a deliberate attempt to disarm and weaken them in the face of very real genocidal threats.

Canadian author warns Bondi lessons being forgotten

Kinsella said governments and social media companies were the two entities most important in fighting the problem, and both had “dropped the ball”.

Of social media owners including Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, he said: “You’ve got billionaires, in one case a trillionaire, who operate in this lawless, wild west environment where anything goes.

“We’re not asking them to donate a kidney. We’re asking them just to observe certain basic restraints, such as to promote truth and discourage hate and lies.”

He said governments should tell the companies: “You will do this, or there will be consequences … so far, there’s not really a government in the world that has done that.”

Kinsella was also critical of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his Canadian counterpart Mark Carney for recognising a Palestinian state at the United Nations in September 2025. He said recognition had been predicated on elections, governance reform, changes to the school curriculum and an end to the Palestinian Authority’s “pay-for-slay” program.

“None of those things have happened, not one,” he said. “[The] Palestinian state, at least in the case of Gaza, is governed by a designated terrorist entity in this country and in my country.

“We have leadership that is weak and is either recklessly or wilfully blind to this virus of antisemitism and hatred that is spreading in our countries, and that in some cases has cost people their lives.”

Referring to the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion, Kinsella said the Australian government had questions to answer over Bondi.

“Here, feet from where we are at the moment, you got 15 people [who] were slaughtered as a consequence of an ideology that was allowed to be taught without restraint in this country, and the people involved in that have to answer that. But so too does the government,” he said. “I’m hopeful that the commission of inquiry deals seriously with what it’s got, which is a serious problem.”

Kinsella also addressed a lunch for AIJAC supporters in Sydney on Monday. “The beast of antisemitism is out of its cage, and it is everywhere to be seen,” he told attendees.

Kinsella said he had fought antisemitism for decades as a lawyer, journalist and political adviser, facing threats against his life and at times requiring police protection. “I have never seen it as bad as it is now. Never,” he said.

He argued that antisemites across the political and ideological spectrum were driven by envy and resentment. “[They] envy your success in every endeavour. They envy the resilience and the strength of the Jewish people,” he said.

Kinsella said Israel was always going to prevail militarily, but a second war – “the information war, the propaganda war” – was under way. He said social media profiles began appearing across North America, Europe and the Middle East 18 months before October 7. He said they sat dormant until the day of the attack, then were used to spread denial of the atrocities.

Kinsella said most people in the West supported Israel and the Jewish community. But he warned that millions of young people on the right and the left “have fallen under the spell of Hamas and Iran and the Jew haters”.

“We cannot lose a generation. We cannot lose the future,” he said.

He said the campaign’s blueprint was devised 40 years ago, and traced its origins to the Soviet Union. “I believe we will win that war,” he said. “Because we must win that war.”

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The Rules Are Always Different For Israel (example #4,523)

Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur for the Palestinian territories, tweeted:

Israel allows 2 million Palestinians with Israeli citizenship (who did not become refugees in 1948) to vote and run for office while it denies that right to 6+ million it has kept under a brutal illegal occupation for nearly 60 years. That is not democracy. It is Apartheid.

Say what? 

Apparently, Albanese believes that distinguishing between citizens and noncitizens when determining who may vote in national elections is, um, apartheid.

This is a peculiar definition of apartheid, since nearly every country on Earth distinguishes between citizens and noncitizens when deciding who gets to vote in national elections. But let's give Albanese the benefit of the doubt and try to figure out exactly what she thinks Israel should do to avoid the dreaded "A" word.

One possibility that would fit her formulation is that she wants Israel to annex the West Bank and Gaza and offer Israeli citizenship to all the Palestinians who live there.

I somehow don't think she wants Israel to annex the territories.

Ok, then maybe Albanese believes that Israel should grant noncitizens the right to vote in national elections without requiring them to become citizens.

That is not entirely unprecedented. A 2023 academic study identified five countries that grant broadly available national voting rights to noncitizen residents: Uruguay, New Zealand, Chile, Malawi and Ecuador. The requirements vary, from one year of residence in New Zealand to fifteen years in Uruguay.  Five countries out of 193. 

But that is not what Albanese is demanding. In those countries, to vote you still must be a resident. Albanese is demanding voting rights for people who, according to her own argument, live in territories that are not part of Israel.

That would be an entirely new and unprecedented category of voting rights: noncitizens who are not residents of the country's sovereign territory. Literally everyone in the world would be eligible to vote in literally every national election by that logic, or at least every election that affects them. Iranians should vote in US elections!

Perhaps, in Albanese's twisted mind, the special circumstance is military occupation. Maybe Albanese believes that occupying another territory obligates a country to grant the occupied population the right to vote in its national elections.

But, again, no one has ever done that. 

Turkey has occupied northern Cyprus since 1974. Does Turkey allow Greek Cypriots living in northern Cyprus to vote in Turkish parliamentary elections? Of course not. Turkey reserves those voting rights for Turkish citizens, including Turkish Cypriots who have acquired Turkish citizenship.

The United States occupied Iraq from 2003 until the formal transfer of sovereignty in 2004, and maintained a massive military presence there for years afterward. Should the United States have registered millions of Iraqis to vote for Barack Obama or John McCain in 2008 merely because American troops were still stationed there? 

Is the United States guilty of "apartheid" because Iraqis could not vote for the American president? (Let's not even discuss how US citizens cannot vote for president or Congress if they live in non-state territories like Puerto Rico.) 

Article 25 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights "recognizes and protects the right of every citizen to take part in the conduct of public affairs, the right to vote and to be elected and the right to have access to public service."

The word "citizen" is pretty clear.

So what, exactly, is Albanese demanding? Can she seriously be saying that international law must be rewritten to apply only to one state and no others? Can she really believe that she just redefined "apartheid" to include giving full rights to the minority citizenship of a state?

Come on. It is clear what she really wants. She, and all the others who pushed the same logic in the wake of Israel's elections, wants the destruction of Israel above all. All their pseudo-legal arguments are not serious: they are just means to an end, to incite hate against Israel so it eventually becomes so isolated that it implodes and can be replaced with a Palestinian Arab state that can expel its Jews and everyone would be happy (except Jews, who don't count.)

Can you figure out any explanation that fits the facts better? 

---

 

Books by Elder of Ziyon

Reclaiming the Covenant Protocols He's an Anti-Zionist Too! At Ptach Lo (ebook) The Muslim Question (ebook, $8) Sarah Makes the World Better (ages 3-8)

More at: media.elderofziyon.com · Substack

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10/29 Links Pt2: The Orwellian rewriting of the October 7 massacres; Blaming the Jews for Everything in Michigan; Anti-Israel activists have ‘co-opted’ American Psychological Association

From Ian:

The Orwellian rewriting of the October 7 massacres

On October 7, 2023, 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage to Gaza. In proportional terms, that would be the equivalent of roughly 8,400 killed and 1,750 kidnapped in Britain. Nor can those numbers convey the suffering of the victims of rape and other sexual violence.

And then came the Orwellian plot twist. Before the dead had been buried, while the hostages were being brutalised in Gaza, and as Israel’s military response was taking shape, the account of what happened began to change, manipulated by Hamas and its allies, enablers, and useful idiots in the West. History was turned on its head. The deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust was blurred, rationalised, justified, celebrated, and, in certain quarters, dismissed as a false-flag operation.

I saw this again recently when I addressed a large university audience in Europe. Fifteen students, strategically positioned around the room, offered a case study in chanted slogans substituting for thought. They robotically repeated accusations of “Nazi-like genocide”, “ethnic cleansing”, and “settler-colonialism”, more intent on reinforcing one another’s certainties than examining the outrageous, unexamined claims they made.

More consequentially, over time, some governments that should have known better began sacrificing high-minded principle for street-level politics. Students at so-called elite universities in the US and UK revealed how little they knew, or cared, about the facts. Too many media outlets seemed quicker to question the evidence staring them in the face than to scrutinise Hamas’s fictionalised claims. Organisations that professed universal concern for women and children were conspicuously missing in action, or raised the evidentiary threshold to new heights, when the victims were Israeli. And the United Nations once again showed how far it had strayed from its founding ideals. It was not until September 2025 that the General Assembly endorsed a declaration condemning Hamas’s October 7 attacks, while some ostensibly neutral UN staff working on relief efforts in Gaza were revealed to be Hamas sympathisers or even moonlighting as Hamas terrorists.

Hamas had announced its intention to destroy Israel long ago. On October 7, its attackers acted on that aim with unprecedented ferocity, in full view of the world, in some cases gleefully recording and sharing their crimes with family and friends. Yet, in the story that took hold in many quarters, democratic Israel became the villain, the aggressor, and even the alleged perpetrator of genocide. Terrorist Hamas, meanwhile, was sanitised as a resistance movement and its reports treated as gospel. Its killers were romanticised as freedom fighters and, in some circles, all but fetishised.

Western capitals rightly supported Ukraine as it defended itself against Russia’s illegal invasion. Yet too many could not, or would not, recognise Israel’s need to fight back powerfully against the aggressors on its own border. Instead came sanctimonious lectures from Dublin to Madrid, Paris to Oslo, and Brussels to Ottawa, as if Israel were confronting a foe that cared a whit about the laws of war.

Strip away the rhetoric, and what many seemed to be saying was something else: for the sake of our streets, our electoral fortunes, our domestic political pressures, and our wider Middle East interests, appease. Sacrifice your interests for ours. Trust the untrustworthy. Be good Christians (!) and turn the other cheek.

Then, in September 2025, London, Paris, Ottawa, and Canberra recognised a Palestinian state without agreed borders, a unified government, or control over its territory – while hostages remained in Gaza. What a sense of timing! What an unearned gift! What shameless pandering!

Meanwhile, amidst this diplomatic circus, history, geography, and reality all got upended.

First, history. Before the attack, Israel maintained neither settlements nor a permanent military presence inside Gaza. It had dismantled its settlements and withdrawn its forces 18 years earlier, giving Gaza’s leaders their first chance ever to chart the strip’s future. They could have chosen Dubai or Singapore as a model. Alas, they did not.

Second, geography. Striking how collective amnesia sets in whenever there is discussion of Gaza’s “encirclement” by Israel. Lo and behold, Gaza has a second border. It’s with Egypt, an Arab and Muslim-majority country. Yet many neglect this inconvenient fact. Why does Egypt maintain such a formidable Gaza border fence, topped with layers of concertina wire?

And third, reality. The “experts” in government, universities, social media, and think tanks presume to know exactly what Israel is not supposed to do. But what, precisely, would they have had Israel do after October 7? Leave a genocidal foe in power on its doorstep? Abandon the hostages, some of whom would endure brutal captivity for more than two years? Defer to Hamas’s use of civilians to shield its fighters and ignore the vast armed infrastructure it built above and below ground? Pretend that Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood had no interests of their own in the conflict? It is easy to preach restraint and question strategy from a distant armchair. It is harder to say what Israel should have done against an enemy determined to destroy it.

Yet for all the second-guessing, all the libellous accusations of genocide, Israel demonstrated two things: military resolve and an effort to limit civilian harm.

It fought a war on seven fronts to weaken its declared enemies and restore the power of deterrence. In that fight, it showed any number of wobbly, flaccid Western nations what valour, patriotism, and resilience look like.

To be sure, there were tragic civilian deaths. Every such death is an incalculable loss. Israel nevertheless sought to minimise civilian casualties as best it could in an immensely difficult, weaponised, and confined environment. In fact, Israel risked the lives of its own soldiers in that effort rather than relying solely on air power. It also permitted humanitarian assistance, albeit with interruptions, much of which, alas, was seized by Hamas for its own use and profit.

Hamas started a war. It was a naked act of aggression. And then, along with fellow travellers, it methodically convinced much of the world that it was the innocent victim of the very war it began. George Orwell, where are you?

David Bell: My report on antisemitism in education is based on hard evidence – now let’s implement its findings

What matters is what emerges when that evidence is considered together. The survey responses, testimony and wider evidence presented to the review consistently point to antisemitism being a real issue among young people and within schools and colleges.

Antisemitism is rising in wider society and it has filtered into our schools. You do not need to look far to see deeply troubling cases involving Jewish pupils and teachers. Statistics are important, but we do not need a single statistic to tell us that antisemitism is present – it is clearly visible.

Questions have also been raised about my impartiality when conducting the review. I did not come to this review with an agenda or narrative I wanted to promote.

Instead, throughout this work I have been led by the evidence presented to me, and I would encourage anyone questioning its conclusions to engage with that evidence in full.

Free speech and open debate are vital, especially in schools and colleges where young people are learning how to navigate these types of conversations.

Young people should be able to discuss difficult and contentious political questions, including the actions of the State of Israel.

That's why I don't believe asking schools and colleges to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism will inhibit legitimate debate. Applied in a way that respects their legal duties, including on equality and freedom of speech, it should help institutions distinguish legitimate criticism from antisemitism.

Debate must be encouraged in education, but school and college leaders also have a responsibility to ensure political expression is appropriate, particularly in the classroom, and that they meet their legal duties.

My conclusion is clear – antisemitism is a serious problem in our schools and colleges, and we must tackle it in a coherent and comprehensive way. My report is a start in that direction so now it’s all about implementation.

WSJ Editorial: Blaming the Jews for Everything in Michigan

A common theme of antisemites throughout history is to blame the Jews for any and every social ill.

Now this has reappeared in America with a new ad for Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed that blames grocery prices on U.S. support for Israel.

The ad features a couple agonizing over high prices at a supermarket. The wife tells her husband that "you're going to have to put those eggs back" because "we have to set that $7 aside for killing Palestinians."

Later the husband asks about the Israelis, "Don't they get universal health care too?" "Yeah, they do. And we're paying for that too probably," she replies. "Might as well put the bananas back."

The unmistakable message: Americans are paying more and making personal sacrifices because the U.S. is supporting Israel's alleged genocide against Palestinians.

Most Michiganders are smart enough to know that Israel isn't responsible for inflation, but the ad is intended to feed grievances on the far left and right.

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10/29 Links Pt1: JPost: Netanyahu, Eisenkot, Bennett must put Israel first and talk unity; Shin Bet probes Qatari, Turkish funding to boost Arab turnout in Israeli election; Israeli ship sinks in Black Sea after being hit by 3 suicide boat drones

From Ian:

Bret Stephens: Very Little Is Likely to Change after Israeli Election

The first thing to say about Tuesday's election in Israel is that the country is having one. Competitive, lawful, on schedule. That's more than can be said of the Palestinian Authority under the presidency of Mahmoud Abbas, who was elected to a four-year term in 2005 but has bypassed elections ever since. It's more than can be said for Hamas, which won Palestinian legislative elections in 2006, went to war against its domestic political opponents, and has ruled through fiat and fear ever since.

It's difficult to take Israel's inveterate critics seriously when they demand a "Free Palestine" without registering the slightest audible objection to the tyrannies in Ramallah and Gaza; or when, in the name of freedom and equality, they seek to abolish the Middle East's only functioning liberal democracy.

For an election widely billed as the most important in the country's history, very little is likely to change, at least as far as the outside world is concerned. Not one of the leading contenders wants a Palestinian state. Not one of them is going to remove Israelis from the West Bank or issue a blanket ban on settlement construction. Not one of them wants anything less than an assertive military posture toward Hamas, Hizbullah and Iran.

Of the many intellectually flabby critiques of Israeli policy since Oct. 7, the idea that Israel should have traded its physical security for the sake of some added dollops of liberal pity is among the flabbiest. Israel doesn't exist to showcase Jewish victimization. It exists to end it.

At stake is whether a people who have borne the burden of Hamas's terror and Iran's missiles and a nonstop state of emergency and the unceasing chorus of global condemnation that is one part ignorance, two parts bigotry and three parts self-delusion should have a government worthy of their sacrifice, steadiness and courage.

After Oct. 7, Israelis Were Forced to Choose between Two Bad Options

Politicians on the left and right in the U.S. these days often seem more focused on Israel, its treatment of the Palestinians, and its policies in the Middle East than on the usual local concerns, like the number of children in a classroom or unemployment. This preoccupation is a puzzle to many Israelis.

Do Israelis really not care what the world thinks about them? No. They care a lot. But what concerns them even more is what their enemies think. Israelis want the Western world to love them but their enemies in the Middle East to fear them.

In the days after the Oct. 7 massacre of Israelis by Hamas, most Western countries displayed a deep empathy for Israel. But the coin had another side. Hamas's invasion and the slaughter signaled to the neighborhood that Israel had lost power. Western love moved Israelis, but their enemies' dissipation of fear aroused existential anxiety.

Three years later, the successes of the Israeli Army rehabilitated the army's deterrent power in the Middle East. The trouble is that the actions that restored Israel's image in the region have severely damaged its image in the West. Any restraint that Israel might have shown to maintain Western sympathy would have prevented it from restoring the fear felt by its enemies. And everything it did to establish fear eroded sympathy. The catch is that it can't have both.

After Oct. 7, Israelis were forced to choose between two bad options. Going to war against a terrorist army requires ground operations amid a civilian population - a blueprint for large-scale death and devastation. But not going to war would have left Hamas with the ability to repeat the massacre, signaled to Israel's enemies that it had lost the ability to defend itself, and stripped Israelis of confidence that they could continue building a future in their own country.

There is broad agreement in Israel: the war and its justifiability are not topics of public debate in the current election. Israel was required to choose bad over worse but judged as if it had chosen bad over good.

Israelis Are Broadly United on Attitude to Country's Enemies

Despite the inconclusive result of Israel's general election, it remains highly unlikely that replacing Netanyahu with Eisenkot would have any profound impact on the many security challenges facing the wider Middle East. When it comes to issues surrounding Israel's security, there is little to distinguish between the two main contenders for the premiership in terms of their uncompromising approach to defeating Israel's many foes.

Eisenkot, 66, the former head of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) who served in Netanyahu's war cabinet after the Oct. 7 attacks, is just as much a hawk as Netanyahu when it comes to defending Israelis from the many regional threats they face. He shares Netanyahu's view that Israel must prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons at all costs, and that it is vital to disrupt and degrade Tehran's terrorist infrastructure throughout the Middle East.

Following the national trauma of Oct. 7, it is a prerequisite for almost all Israeli voters that whoever leads their country regards the defense of the Jewish homeland as their number-one priority. So far as the wider Middle East is concerned, the next Israeli government will be equally robust when confronting its many foes.

Israel will continue to target any attempt by Iran to reconstitute its nuclear program, the majority of which has been reduced to rubble. Likewise, Israel will continue to press for the complete disarmament of Hamas terrorists in Gaza, and will maintain its efforts to disrupt the activities of Hizbullah and other Iranian-backed terror groups in the region.

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Activists To Link High Fuel Prices With Israel: Firebomb Gas Stations 'For Palestine'

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook and Substack pages.

Los Angeles, October 29 - A group of students and community organizations branding itself grassroots while enjoying the funding and direction of tech donors and professional consultants announced plans this week to connect California’s persistently high gasoline prices to Israeli policy and to stage coordinated actions at filling stations across the state. The campaign, described by organizers as “material solidarity,” includes calls to disrupt pump operations and, in some literature, to set stations alight, leaving behind "Free Palestine" graffiti to let everyone know whom to support.

At a press conference outside a Chevron station in Culver City, spokespeople for the newly formed Fuelestine Alliance argued that pump prices above five dollars a gallon stem directly from “settler-colonial energy politics.” One organizer, a graduate student in critical theory, told reporters that every gallon of refined petroleum sold in Los Angeles “subsidizes the occupation” because several major oil companies maintain business relationships with Israeli firms or hold investments linked to the country.

When asked how arson at a California gas station might alter conditions in Gaza or the West Bank, the speaker retorted that the question itself reflected “a colonial demand for measurable outcomes” and that the primary value of the action lay in “refusing normalcy.”

The group’s materials do not address California’s combination of state gasoline taxes, low-carbon fuel standards, refining constraints, or the absence of new in-state refinery capacity — factors state energy officials have repeatedly cited as the main reasons local prices exceed the national average by more than a dollar per gallon. Instead, the literature frames any attempt to discuss those factors as an evasion. A flyer distributed at the Culver City event lists “U.S. imperial complicity” and “Zionist capital flows” as the operative causes and urges readers to “make the pumps inoperable.”

"Palestinians suffer restrictions on their movement," explained a Students for Justice in Palestine coordinator, referring to Israeli security measures to prevent terrorist attacks. "No one is free until Palestine is free. Thus, restrictions on movement in California, by any means necessary."

Several local chapters have already begun mapping stations for what organizers call “direct action days.” Internal planning documents describe a preference for nighttime operations, and advise participants to avoid stations that employ large numbers of Palestinian or Arab staff so that the actions “cannot be spun as anti-Palestinian.”

The same documents contain no estimates of how the proposed disruptions would affect fuel availability for the several hundred thousand Californians who commute long distances, nor any assessment of secondary price effects if stations are forced offline. One organizer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said such considerations were “beside the point” because “Palestinians don’t experience relief from cheaper American gas either way. The point is for us to feel good about doing something we think is righteous, and to have righteous cover for violence.”

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Books by Elder of Ziyon

Reclaiming the Covenant Protocols He's an Anti-Zionist Too! At Ptach Lo (ebook) The Muslim Question (ebook, $8) Sarah Makes the World Better (ages 3-8)

More at: media.elderofziyon.com · Substack

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