Tuesday, December 26, 2023

12/26 Links Pt2: PM Netanyahu: Israel's Three Prerequisites for Peace; Stephen Fry: Jews should stand upright and proud in who they are; Thomas Friedman's emotional numbness

From Ian:

PM Netanyahu (WSJ): Israel's Three Prerequisites for Peace
There are three prerequisites for peace between Israel and its Palestinian neighbors in Gaza. First, Hamas, a key Iranian proxy, must be destroyed. The U.S., UK, France, Germany and many other countries support Israel's intention to demolish the terror group. To achieve that goal, its military capabilities must be dismantled and its political rule over Gaza must end.

Hamas leaders have vowed to repeat the Oct. 7 massacre "again and again." That is why their destruction is the only proportional response to prevent the repeat of such horrific atrocities. Anything less guarantees more war and more bloodshed.

Unjustly blaming Israel for civilian casualties will only encourage Hamas and other terror organizations around the world to use human shields. To render this cruel and cynical strategy ineffective, the international community must place the blame for these casualties squarely on Hamas.

Second, Gaza must be demilitarized to ensure that the territory is never again used as a base to attack Israel. This will require establishing a temporary security zone on the perimeter of Gaza and an inspection mechanism on the border between Gaza and Egypt that meets Israel's security needs and prevents smuggling of weapons into the territory.

The expectation that the Palestinian Authority will demilitarize Gaza is a pipe dream. It currently funds and glorifies terrorism in Judea and Samaria and educates Palestinian children to seek the destruction of Israel. For the foreseeable future, Israel will have to retain overriding security responsibility over Gaza.

Third, Gaza will have to be deradicalized. Schools must teach children to cherish life rather than death, and imams must cease to preach for the murder of Jews. Visionary Arab leaders in the Gulf have led efforts to deradicalize their societies and transform their countries. Once Hamas is destroyed, Gaza is demilitarized and Palestinian society begins a deradicalization process, Gaza can be rebuilt.
Thomas Friedman's emotional numbness
So now Friedman is pleading with the White House, meaning his friend Biden, to have the Israeli war machine halt, to draw a red line, "to declare victory in Gaza and go home," because at this point "Israeli prime minister is utterly useless as a leader" and "prioritizing his own electoral needs over the interests of Israelis."

He suggests a framework: IDF withdrawal, return of captives, and a permanent ceasefire under international supervision. The captive issue, he reckons, "makes rational military decision-making there impossible," and he believes that there is "increasing discomfort in the Israel Defense Forces leadership over the fact that it is being asked by the far-right government of Benjamin Netanyahu to fight a war in Gaza without a clearly defined political objective."

The problem is that such words could make the Western world – and worse, Hamas – conclude that Israel's international credit is running out, that there's a rift between Washington and Jerusalem. Nothing can give Hamas a better lifeline than that. Friedman might as well have written in his column to Yahya Sinwar: "Hold on a little longer, comrade. It's almost over."

Incidentally, he reckons that after an Israeli withdrawal, Gaza's population will take care of Sinwar themselves. You'd need outbursts of obsessive hatred for Netanyahu and the Right, as well as emotional numbness, to put a stick in Israel's spokes right now, to cast aspersions and make terrible accusations against a Jewish state fighting for its existence and its leadership, and to call on its ally to tie its hands.

It's almost ironic that the most hollow oracle of the liberal-Democratic wing, the one vocally opposed to the "occupation" and Israeli control in the West Bank, is calling on the leader of the great empire to leverage its weight against what he apparently sees as a vassal state – an impudent province that has reared its head higher than it should. It's even more astonishing to see how little respect, if any, this great democrat has for Israeli democracy and sovereignty.

It's one thing to criticize Israel, its government, leaders, military on the pages of a newspaper. But Friedman's explicit call for the superpower to impose policy on Israel as it fights for its survival is a frightening vestige of the imperialist master-subject mentality. It's stunning how such a voice emerges from the heart of the Democratic establishment that effectively views US-Israel relations as analogous to Iran-Hezbollah.
Jonathan Tobin: Israel-haters aren’t refighting the Vietnam War
Marxism’s comeback with DEI
Still, it’s not entirely wrong to see the roots of today’s anti-Israel protests in those radicals, who were the most violent elements of the protests against the Johnson and Nixon administrations. Unlike most Americans, the Marxists of the misnamed Students for a Democratic Society—veterans of which were featured in the Times article—wanted the Communists to win in much the same way those who compose the mobs tying up traffic, breaking up Christmas celebrations and intimidating Jewish students on campuses want Hamas to defeat Israel.

Unlike most of the Americans who were against the war in the 1960s without expressing hatred for their own country, the motivations of the large number of young people and Muslims who have swelled the numbers of the anti-Israel movement are ideological in nature. They are the product of a generation of education in which leftists—many of them former ’60s radicals—who believe in the myths of intersectionality that falsely analogize the Palestinian war against Israel to the struggle for civil rights in the United States. They’ve been indoctrinated in the toxic catechism of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), as well as critical race theory, which divides the world into two immutable groups: victims of racism and racist oppressors.

This is a neo-Marxist dialectic not unrelated to the ideas of the so-called New Left that spawned SDS and the radical Weatherman terrorist movement that tried to blow up the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon, the State Department and dozens of other targets during their campaign in what might well have been termed a real “insurrection.”

And that is what blinds them to the fact that they are devoting their energy and passion to supporting a cause that is fundamentally evil. The ideological prism through which they view the world mandates that the side that is designated by leftist doctrine as “white” and colonial (Israel) must be wrong and the one labeled as the cause of the oppressed “people of color” (the Palestinians) must be right.

They are insensible to obvious truths about a complex conflict that isn’t racial and that has always been driven by Arab refusal to share the land with the Jews. Their acceptance of the idea that Jews, who are the indigenous people of their ancient homeland, are colonizers in Israel much as Americans were depicted in Vietnam is as egregious as it is false.

But that doesn’t matter to the protesters because they see the facts as irrelevant. Nor do they care about the horrors perpetrated by Hamas on Oct. 7 or even against their own people as they continue to sacrifice them on the altar of their never-ending war against the Jews.

Mainstreaming antisemitism
It’s true that Hamas’s useful idiots are using some of the same tactics pioneered by the anti-Vietnam movement. But what those seeking to lionize today’s demonstrators want to obfuscate in their alleged idealism about helping Gazans is given the lie by the antisemitism they are spreading. The arguments about Vietnam were not predicated on the horrible notion that wiping the only Jewish state off the map—an objective that could only be achieved by the genocide of the Jews—is a righteous cause. And even at their worst, the Vietnam protests didn’t target Jewish students, Jewish businesses or seek to drive Jews from the public square as these mobs seek to do.

There’s no denying that the same core ideology driving the movement to destroy Israel is linked to the war on the West and the principles of American freedom that were championed by the Marxists of the ’60s New Left. Yet what is so damaging about demonstrators right now is not just their unabashed antisemitism. It’s the fact that their lies are being bought not by just a radical fringe but by a broad cross-section of young Americans who have been educated to believe that a genocidal, Jew-hating terrorist movement is the underdog deserving of support. This is the greatest tragedy of the post-Oct. 7 protests. And it is ultimately one that not just threatens Israel or the Jews, but the future of the United States as a free country.
Phyllis Chesler: Destroying Western culture, one Islamist protest at a time
Just last week, pro-Palestinian Arab demonstrators tried to stop Congressmen Richie Torres and Mike Lawler, from speaking about Israeli-Arab peace through the Abraham Accords at the 92nd St Y in New York City.

Approximately twenty to twenty five protestors stood up in waves, one after the other, yelling out "Free Palestine" and "Genocide is not peace." It took about twenty minutes to clear the room. The assembled audience booed them and eventually started yelling "Get them out" and "Yeah, free Palestine from Hamas."

Torres sat on the platform entirely unfazed. Afterwards, he tweeted: "No amount of Astroturf Anti-Israel agitation is going to bully me into supporting a ceasefire that perpetuates the genocidal terrorism of Hamas. I refuse to be intimidated by a fanatical fringe that represents no one and nothing but itself."

This demonstrating-in-waves is hardly original. It is an Islamist/Marxist tactic long in use.

For example, in 2008, female students, members of the Muslim Student Association (a creation of the Muslim Brotherhood), chose to interrupt my friend and colleague Nonie Darwish's lecture about eight Iranian women who were facing execution and about Sharia law. Each hijabbed student sat at the end of each row, cleared their throats rather loudly, and then proceeded to leave, one after the other, for the bathroom. Their interruptions continued as Nonie spoke.

In 2010, ten Muslim students interrupted Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren's lecture at the University of California's Irvine campus. They continued to heckle and shout him down. "Michael Oren, propagating murder is not an expression of free speech" and "Sir, you are an accomplice to genocide." Amazingly, the students were charged, found guilty and sentenced to three years of probation, 56 hours of community service and fines.

For the last twenty years in America outside lecturers, professors, and students have been bullied, cancelled, and shut down all across America. Loud mobs have harassed politicians at their homes, on the street, and while dining out with their families.


Stephen Fry: Jews should stand upright and proud in who they are
Fry then moves on to the topic at hand: the surge of antisemitic incidents following Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel and the subsequent war between Israel and the Islamist group: “The horrendous events of October 7 and the Israeli response,” Fry says, “seem to have stirred up this ancient hatred. It’s agonizing to see all the violence and destruction that's unfolding and the terrible loss of life on both sides brings me an overwhelming sadness and heartache.

“But whatever our opinion on what is happening, there can be no excuse for the behavior of some of our citizens. Since October 7, there have been 50 separate reported incidents of antisemitism every single day in London alone– an increase of 1,350% according to the Metropolitan Police.”

Fry goes on to recount some typical incidents, such as the breaking of shop windows, the spray painting of swastikas on Jewish properties, and the closing of Jewish schools due to threats.

“My Jewish grandparents loved Britain,” Fry says, “believing the Jews were more welcome here than in most countries. I’m glad they’re not alive now, to read newspaper stories that would have reminded them of the 1930s Europe that they left.”

Fry invokes his parents’ belief that “Britishness meant being fair and decent. But what can be more unfair or indecent than race-hatred, whether antisemitism, Islamophobia, or any kind?” He says that his message this Christmas is that we’re all brothers and sisters, ‘naive as that sounds.’

And Jews, he adds, “should stand upright and proud in who they are… speaking up and calling out venomous slurs and hateful abuse wherever you encounter them. Knowing and loving this country as I do, I don’t believe that most Britons are okay living in a society that judges hatred of Jews to be the one acceptable form of racism.

“So, speak up, stand with us, be proud to be Jewish, or Jew-ish, or, if not Jewish at all, proud to have us as a part of this great nation as any other minority, as any of you. And so, this mad, quintessential, queer English Jew wishes you, whatever your race or creed, however you identify yourself, all peace, joy, and,” – with a final joke – “a very merry Xmas, formerly known as Twittermas.”

“And now,” he concludes, “let’s all exhale that great sigh that Jews have sighed for thousands of years – oy.”
Stephen Fry Addresses The Nation | Alternative Christmas Message
National treasure, Stephen Fry has an important message for the British public during the holidays. In this deeply personal speech, Fry celebrates how far Britain has come in accepting and tolerating difference since his youth. He reveals that growing up he feared he would not be accepted for his sexuality but that he never suspected it would be his Jewish heritage that would make him afraid of how others behaved.


Israel Advocacy Movement: Is Zionism anti-colonial? | Speakers Corner
Joseph discusses whether Zionism is anti-colonial with a visitor to the park.




‘Jesus Would Be a Hostage in Gaza if He Was Alive Today,’ Says French Catholic Priest Who Pioneered Holocaust Research
The French Catholic priest who developed an international reputation for his pioneering research into the Nazi “Holocaust by bullets” in Ukraine has spoken out forcefully against the antisemitic attitudes coloring criticism of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.

“I always say: if there were no Jews in Israel, few people would look out for the Palestinians,” Father Patrick Desbois told the French language service of Israeli broadcaster i24 on Tuesday.

Desbois has dedicated his life to researching the Holocaust, fighting antisemitism, and furthering relations between Catholics and Jews. In 2004 he helped found Yahad-In Unum, a project whose mission is to investigate the mass executions of Jews and Roma in Ukraine and Belarus between 1941 and 1944. In the process, Desbois and his team located the graves of more than 1 million Jews throughout Eastern Europe and interviewed scores of witnesses.

Desbois was particularly irked by repeated claims on social media over the Christmas holiday that Jesus himself would be persecuted by Israel were he still alive.

“If he had lived in 1942, Jesus would have been deported to Auschwitz, and if he had been born today, he would be the target of missiles or be a hostage in Gaza,” Desbois remarked, referring to the seizure of more than 200 people during the Oct. 7 pogrom carried out by Hamas terrorists in southern Israel.

Desbois insisted that the motive behind such messages was political, not religious.

“What we see in Bethlehem today, this need to affirm that Jesus was not Jewish, is political,” he argued. “Hamas has always officially supported Christians, but not in Gaza.”

He added that the “Islamists are always with us, except when we are at home; at home, we try to survive.”

Desbois also voiced concern about the alleged participation of Hamas terrorists in the oppression of Iraq’s Yazidi minority in 2014 at the hands of ISIS.

“I do not forget, either, and we never talk about it, that the Palestinians in Gaza, who were not locked in cages as we believe, were circulating a lot, and a number participated in the genocide of the Yazidi minority in Iraq in 2014 alongside the jihadists,” said Desbois, whose efforts have encompassed advocacy on their behalf. “Others also participated in the Yazidi slave trade.”
Media Help Turn Ancient Jewish Jesus Into a Modern-Day Palestinian
Every Christmas season, the mainstream media publishes several news articles and opinion pieces that seek to reinvent history by claiming that Jesus was Palestinian (or, at the very least, born in Palestine) and that the present-day experiences of Palestinians in the Holy Land are akin to the experiences of the Holy Family at the time of Jesus’ birth.

In effect, these pieces divorce the story of Jesus from its ancient Jewish context and re-settle it within a modern political milieu.

With the war between Israel and Hamas still raging through the Christmas season this year, the peddlers of the “Jesus was a Palestinian” narrative have gone into overdrive, inserting it into mainstream media coverage while also blasting it on social media.

In the mainstream media, the “Palestinian Jesus” story focused heavily on a nativity scene set up by the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem, which depicts baby Jesus draped in a keffiyeh and laying atop a pile of rubble.

In numerous reports on this creative blend of traditional religious iconography and modern-day politics, the mainstream media has given the Church’s head, Reverend Dr. Munther Isaac, ample space to rejig the ancient figure of Jesus for a contemporary audience.

In The Guardian and the Washington Post, Reverend Isaac is quoted as saying that “If Jesus was born today, he’d be born under the rubble of Gaza,” essentially removing Jesus’ Jewish identity and making him a member of present-day Palestinian society.

In the Associated Press, Reverend Isaac is similarly quoted as saying that “We see Jesus in every child that’s killed [in Gaza].”

This sentiment was also expounded upon in an NPR program where one guest stated that “If you look for Jesus today, he is in Gaza.”
Jewish NFL Owner Robert Kraft Says Current State of Antisemitism in the US ‘Is Really Scary’
New England Patriots owner and Jewish billionaire Robert Kraft warned of the ongoing surge in antisemitism across the US on Monday, emphasizing the importance of combating increased hostility and discrimination toward the American Jewish community.

“If we don’t do a good job of controlling it, I think hate leads to violence. And what we’re seeing going on in this country now is really scary to me,” Kraft, who founded the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism four years ago, said during an interview on CNN. The NFL owner added that he is concerned about antisemitism affecting other minorities if it is not stopped.

“Most people are good, but when you start seeing hate and it starts with Jewish hate, there will be hate against all minorities,” Kraft said. “You’re next.”

Since the start of the Israel-Hamas war that began with the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks in the Jewish state, the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism has been busy countering misinformation online. “Fifty percent of what’s being spread is lies and not accurate, and young people unfortunately are believing,” Kraft explained.

He added that his foundation has seen a rise in small donations from Americans who want to contribute in the fight against hatred. Kraft himself recently matched a $100 million donation to his foundation to help fight antisemitism.

Drawing awareness to antisemitism is something that hits close to home for Kraft. He told CNN: “I had people who didn’t want to do business with me. They thought I had horns in my head. They had never met someone from my background and it just allows you to work harder.”
Gaza and the Civil War within Islam
Seeing the war in Gaza as part of a “civil war” within the Islamic world, Aryeh Tepper stresses Hamas’s origins in the Muslim Brotherhood, whose ideology rests on claims that render most Arab states illegitimate. Hamas today aligns itself with the Islamic Republic of Iran, whose Shiite founders drew deeply on the writings of the Brotherhood’s Sunni theorists. On the other side are what Tepper calls the “anti-Islamist league” of Morocco, the UAE, Bahrain, and Egypt, whose foreign ministers gathered in Israel for a summit last year. This group now finds itself on the defensive:

For the foreseeable future, the tolerant camp faces its own internal fissures and challenges. In Morocco, the left and the Islamists are marching for Gaza and publicly embarrassing the monarchy. In the UAE, ties to Israel were conditioned from the beginning on the appearance of a Palestinian diplomatic horizon, while Sultan bin Muhammad al-Qasimi, the ruler of the emirate of Sharjah, [one of the country’s seven confederates], is known to have Islamist sympathies. Bahrain’s Prince Salman publicly condemned Hamas’s barbarism on two occasions, but memories remain from the 2011 Islamist winter, [i.e., the aftermath of the Arab Spring], when demonstrators from the country’s Shiite majority demanded the downfall of the monarchy. As for Egypt, refugees are massing at Gaza’s Rafah border crossing, and Cairo has been clear that their flight into Northern Sinai will lead to a disruption of relations with Israel.

One thing can be said with confidence in this dynamic geopolitical mix: the Islamists must not be allowed to appear victorious. A Hamas victory, which in the present case means holding on to control of Gaza no matter the material and human price, . . . will inspire Islamists (and post-colonialists) around the world and attract new recruits to the cause. Israel’s victory, however, will demonstrate that resistance is futile. For the sake of its own survival, and for the sake of a humane, pluralist future in the Middle East and North Africa, Israel must annihilate Hamas.
2023 was the year campus antisemitism finally got its reckoning after college students cheer for terrorism
The year 2023, particularly the months after the Oct. 7 terror attacks, featured lawsuits, congressional investigations, and threats to cut federal funding from elite universities. It was the year that campus antisemitism, long bubbling under the radar on college campuses, finally got its reckoning.

Jonah Cohen, a communications director at the Committee for Accuracy of Middle East Reporting in America, told Fox News Digital, "Americans are beginning to awaken to the presence of extremist and antisemitic ideologies prevailing in our universities."

Israel declared war against Hamas after the terrorist group infiltrated the country on Oct. 7, firing thousands of rockets at residential areas and butchering, raping and torturing its civilians. At least 1,200 Israelis and 32 Americans were killed; over 240 people were taken as hostages into the Gaza Strip.

"The Oct. 7th terrorist attacks by Hamas exposed [systemic Jew-hatred on college campuses] reality like never before," Brooke Goldstein of the Lawfare Project told Fox News.

Israeli soldiers in Hamas tunnel
Israeli soldiers are seen on Friday, Dec. 15, in a tunnel that the military says Hamas militants used to attack the Erez crossing in the northern Gaza Strip. (AP/Ariel Schalit)

Following these events, protests broke out on college campuses – and pro-Palestinian demonstrations frightened Jewish students for, in many cases, sympathizing with Hamas' crimes and justifying them.

"The barbarity and pure evil of the unspeakable acts committed by these terrorists against civilians - men, women, and children - shocked the world. But what was just as shocking was what we saw next: college students and faculty cheering these attacks," Goldstein said.

At Cornell University, students told Fox News Digital they felt unsafe when a professor, Russell Rickford, said he was "exhilarated" after the Hamas terrorist attack. Students at Cornell, and around the country, also faced hostile rhetoric and chants from their peers such as calls for the elimination of Israel "From the river to the sea" and for "Intifada" – the Arabic word for "uprising" that also refers to violent Palestinian resistance efforts.

"How can Jewish students feel safe on this campus when this abhorrent hate speech is occurring near our campus? This institution cannot allow an antisemite and justifier of terror to use Cornell to give his viewpoint legitimacy," Cornell Student Netanel Shapira said.
Unmasking SJP [PDF]

Billionaire Nelson Peltz Resigns from Wiesenthal Center Board over Call to Boycott Ben & Jerry’s
Since the October 7 massacre, Anuradha Mittal, founder of the progressive think tank Oakland Institute, and the head of the board of directors of Ben & Jerry’s, has been an adamant pro-Hamas supporter, calling on Israel to stop its campaign against the murderous group. Here is one of numerous tweets she posted, this one on December 8:

The Wiesenthal Center, known for its previous criticism of Ben & Jerry’s support for anti-Israel causes, renewed its objections to Mittal and Ben & Jerry’s over the tweet. On December 8, the Wiesenthal Center’s X account accused Ben & Jerry’s of “justifying” the October 7 massacre by Hamas and urged people not to spend a penny on their products. The tweet included a photo of Ben & Jerry’s Chairman Anuradha Mittal, who has been attacking Israel on her private account. The tweet was eventually deleted.

Enter Billionaire investor Nelson Peltz, 81, born and raised in Jewish Brooklyn, NY, who until December 12 was on the Wiesenthal Board, is a board member at Unilever, Ben & Jerry’s parent company. According to the Wall Street Journal, Peltz resigned from his position at the Simon Wiesenthal Center after it called on people not to buy Ben & Jerry’s ice cream.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Mittal said she expressed to Unilever her objection to the Wiesenthal Center’s tweet, claiming it unfairly targeted Ben & Jerry’s and caused her to feel unsafe. Even after the Wiesenthal tweet had been deleted, Mittal continued to receive hate emails, tweets, and LinkedIn messages.

Mittal raised concerns about Peltz’s dual roles on the boards of both Unilever and the Wiesenthal Center. She requested that the company investigate whether Peltz may have violated his fiduciary duty to shareholders, considering the center’s urging consumers to boycott Unilever products.
Now Harvard BOARD is under pressure to resign after standing by embattled president Claudine Gay over disastrous antisemitism testimony

Media Omit Criticism, Glorify the Red Cross’s Role Amid Israel-Hamas War
Two stories on the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war deserved coverage last week: Comments on the situation in Gaza by the organization’s head and the filing of a lawsuit against it over its failure to help Israeli hostages.

Unfortunately, major news agencies echoed the former but were completely silent on the latter.

This selective omission focused all attention on the plight of Palestinians in Gaza at the expense of the suffering of Israelis held hostage by Hamas.

This view was further promoted by two factors: The media’s blindness to the Red Cross’s responsibility for the Israeli hostages and the glorification of the organization’s humanitarian role.

Reuters and AP Reveal and Conceal
On December 19, Reuters gave a platform to Red Cross President Mirjana Spoljaric, who had spoken to journalists after her visit to Israel and Gaza.

The headline, “Gaza war is world’s ‘moral failure’, Red Cross chief says” could be seen as judgmental — was Israel supposed to refrain from going to war after the brutal Hamas massacre of its citizens on October 7? Isn’t it a moral failure for the world to not consider such a war morally justified?

Regardless, the piece gives a balanced account, presenting Israel’s criticism of the Red Cross followed by the president’s response.
Although the ICRC facilitated the release of hostages during the truce, the group has been criticised by some Israelis for not doing more to free others and provide them with medical care. Some social media users have equated it to a taxi service to drive hostages out of Gaza.

“You don’t just go there and take the hostages and bring them out,” Spoljaric said, saying that any analogy with an Uber or taxi service was “unacceptable and outrageous.”
New York Times Shills for Hamas-Appointed Mayor
The Mayor’s Expertise
It’s worth noting that Sarraj is an associate professor of transportation. His LinkedIn profile states that he has “very good experience in management as well as engineering” and is a “specialist with a good experience record in infrastructure, road design, traffic analysis, traffic management and environmental impact analysis.”

He has a first degree in civil engineering, a second degree in Transport Planning and Engineering, and a PhD in Traffic Management.

Is it even possible that Gaza City’s mayor, an engineer by training, was unaware of the miles of Hamas tunnels underneath his city or the terrorist infrastructure embedded in the civilian population?

Indeed, in 2022, a misfired Islamic Jihad rocket fell on Jabaliya killing two civilians. According to the IDF, the location from which the missile was fired was owned by the Gaza City municipality, headed by Sarraj.

“Sarraj chose to take care of the terrorist organization Islamic Jihad more than the residents of the city he heads, and abused public space which belongs to the residents of the city for terror. This is how he harmed his citizens directly,” the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit said.

‘Why can’t we live in peace?’
Sarraj concludes his opinion piece with a question that assumes an astonishing level of gullibility on the part of readers:
Why can’t we live in peace and have open borders and free trade?

Sarraj should ask the people who appointed him as mayor. They should be able to explain to him how many Israelis would die as a result of open borders that would allow Hamas terrorists to enter Israel at will. They would readily admit that free trade would allow an influx of weapons to carry out October 7 massacres “again and again,” as Hamas official Ghazi Hamed boasted.

Sarraj is in no position to talk about peace. As demonstrated by Israel’s military ground operation, Gaza City has operated as a Hamas terrorist base all within plain sight of its mayor.

The New York Times is perfectly within its rights to give a platform to ordinary Palestinians suffering as a result of Hamas’ decision to launch a war against Israel. But giving a platform to a Hamas-appointed figure without giving its readership the full picture is one step too far.
Daniel Greenfield: New York Times Fired Editor for Anti-BLM Editorial, But Runs Hamas Op-Ed

New York Times sparks outrage over running op-ed by Hamas mayor: ‘You have no shame or dignity’
The New York Times ran an op-ed Sunday by Hamas’ handpicked Gaza City mayor — prompting outrage on social media from Israel supporters who slammed the Gray Lady for amplifying “Jew hate.”

The essay by Yahya R. Sarraj published on Christmas Eve comes amid fury over Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s social media post that denounced Israel as a violent occupying force and likened Jesus to Palestinians.

Sarraj’s op-ed — titled “I Am Gaza City’s Mayor. Our Lives and Culture Are in Rubble” — condemned Israel for “caus[ing] the deaths of more than 20,000 people” and for destroying or damaging “about half the buildings” in the Gaza Strip.

The Times’s decision to grant a platform to Sarraj, who was appointed mayor of Gaza City by Hamas in 2019 after a career in academia, sparked an immediate backlash from many on social media.

“I wonder, would NYT also publish an op-ed from Al-Qaeda justifying 9-11? Of course not, but there is no red line to this paper’s Jew-hatred,” tweeted Arsen Ostrovsky, an International Human Rights lawyer who describes himself on X as a Zionist.

“Unbelievable. This is a Hamas-appointed Mayor,” another X user wrote, adding: “They slaughtered and raped their neighbors and have the nerve to represent themselves as victims?”

Others slammed Sarraj for ignoring the Hamas massacre that led to Israel launching its assault on Gaza.

“Literally a member of Hamas, you have no shame or dignity NYT,” wrote an X user.


On Christmas Eve, Guardian promotes the deicide charge
We’ve been monitoring the Guardian since 2009, and, in our view, the outlet’s current Jerusalem correspondent, Bethan McKernan, possesses the most visceral hostility towards Israel of any of the correspondents they’ve assigned to the region during that time. In fact, ‘hostility to Israel’ is a kind characterisation of the reporter, who, while the Mid-East correspondent with the Independent, effectively endorsed an antisemitic book, and, on Oct. 7, posted on X using language that can be interpreted as a justification for Hamas’s invasion.

McKernan, we have demonstrated, clearly sees her job as an extension of her radical activism.

So, to observe that nothing much shocks us anymore about McKernan’s coverage of the region – which can be said of the Guardian more broadly – is an understatement. That being said, it’s nonetheless edifying to note her decision to promote the evocation – in an article published on Christmas Eve – of the narrative depicting Jesus, a Jew from Judea, as a Palestinian persecuted by the Jewish state, with a headline suggesting that editors weren’t at all a concerned with evoking classic antisemitism.

To be fair, we should add that McKernan isn’t, by any stretch, the first correspondent to exploit Christmas, or the story of Jesus, to demonise Israel.

That being said, the Guardian piece does represent one of the more egregious examples we’ve seen of this media holiday tradition. To depict baby Jesus as a Palestinian killed (in Gaza?) by the Jewish state is redolent of the deicide charge – the lethal antisemitic and ahistorical accusation that Jews collectively killed Jesus, a theme introduced by McKernan in the opening paragraphs:


Guardian whitewashes extremism of anti-Israel group
A Guardian article written by Geneva Abdul reporting on Saturday’s anti-Israel protest in London (“London protest calls for Gaza ceasefire and boycott of ‘Israel-linked’ brands”, Dec. 26) noted one UK group, called Sisters Uncut, which helped organise the demo.

Hundreds of people have marched along Oxford Street in London calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and a boycott of “Israel-linked” brands, as traffic in the busy shopping district was brought to a standstill days before Christmas.

“There can be no Christmas as usual while a genocide is happening,” the organisers and activist group Sisters Uncut wrote on social media on Saturday, calling for the boycott of brands including Puma, HP and Axa.

“When we disrupt the flow of capital we strike at the heart of the brutal occupation. We will continue to shut it down in solidarity with the Palestinian people,” the group said, sharing videos of protesters armed with Palestinian flags and placards beneath Carnaby’s glittering decorations while chanting “shut it down” outside Puma.

What the Guardian didn’t reveal is that Sisters Uncut, which claims to be a feminist group opposed to sexual violence, not only hasn’t said a word about Hamas’s rape, sexual mutilation and murder of Israeli women and girls on Oct. 7, but actually issued a statement which appeared to justify the barbaric antisemitic violence against women committed by the proscribed terror group on that day.


BBC News website amplification of Christmas appropriating political stunts

CBC News Podcast Tells Listeners of Health Catastrophe in Gaza – Never Mentions Hamas Theft of Aid

NPR Complicit in UNRWA Underreporting of Aid Trucks

What's missing in Lucy Williamson's BBC ‘briefing’ on support for Hamas?

Toronto Star Urges Canada- Shift Stance on Israel Despite 2:1 Support
Writing in their December 20 commentary in The Toronto Star entitled: “After call for a ceasefire in Gaza, this is what Canada should do next,” Faisal Kutty and Emraan Dharsi attempted to portray Canada’s recent vote in support of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas as a win for the cause of peace. Regrettably, their argument was based on a toxic mix of half-truths and careful omissions.

Kutty and Dharsi told readers that Canada has “stood out and not in a good way” in the international community while resisting initial calls for a ceasefire. But popularity is not moral clarity, and standing in the minority does not mean one is wrong, including at the United Nations (UN). Former Israeli envoy to the UN Abba Eban once dryly observed that “If Algeria introduced a resolution declaring that the earth was flat and that Israel had flattened it, it would pass by a vote of 164 to 13 with 26 abstentions.”

Kutty and Dharsi wrote that Canada “voted for peace” at the United Nations General Assembly on December 12. But the vote was not for peace; any informed observer would recognize that a unilateral ceasefire in Gaza is indistinguishable from Israel’s unconditional surrender. The text of the UN resolution does not even mention Hamas, let alone ever condemning the fanatical Islamic terrorist group, rendering it not only meaningless, but in fact counter-productive.

Any calls for a ceasefire which are not predicated on the return of the hostages kidnapped by Hamas during their October 7 massacre, and on the group’s surrender, are not worth the paper they are written on, for they not only ignore Hamas’ role in launching the current war, but the group’s stated (and re-stated) genocidal goals, namely to wipe Israel off the map, and replace it with an Islamic State-style theocratic regime.

After all, on October 6, a ceasefire was in place between Israel and Hamas, the latter deciding it was worthless when it launched the biggest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.

This appears to not bother Kutty and Dharsi, who also failed to mention Hamas even a single time in their column, akin to an commentary demanding that the Allies stop fighting Germany in World War Two, all while finding themselves unable to ever mention the genocidal enemy being fought.


‘We don’t like Nazis either,’ Substack says, opts not to ban them
More than 200 writers on a newsletter platform, going by “Substackers Against Nazis,” penned a letter to the platform’s leadership about neo-Nazis with large followings.

“We’re asking a very simple question that has somehow been made complicated: Why are you platforming and monetizing Nazis?” they wrote. “We, your publishers, want to hear from you on the official Substack newsletter. Is platforming Nazis part of your vision of success? Let us know—from there we can each decide if this is still where we want to be.”

Substack co-founder Hamish McKenzie responded on Dec. 21.

“I just want to make it clear that we don’t like Nazis either—we wish no-one held those views,” he wrote. “But some people do hold those and other extreme views. Given that, we don’t think that censorship (including through demonetizing publications) makes the problem go away—in fact, it makes it worse.”

“Our content guidelines do have narrowly defined proscriptions, including a clause that prohibits incitements to violence,” he added. “We will continue to actively enforce those rules while offering tools that let readers curate their own experiences and opt in to their preferred communities. Beyond that, we will stick to our decentralized approach to content moderation, which gives power to readers and writers.”
Nazi items on Amazon, Missouri Democrat booted, Biden campaign compares Trump to Hitler
The FBI reportedly believes that some 200 bomb “swatting” incidents, in which threats were called in to Jewish sites in order that armed law enforcement would be dispatched, started outside the country.

Rabbi Moshe Moskowitz, of Baltimore, believes his home was targeted for having a “We Stand With Israel” sign. Smashed watermelons found at his home and that of a neighbor, who had Chanukah decorations, can refer to the colors of the Palestinian flag. “Antisemitism in every form must be denounced unequivocally,” wrote Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott. “It’s my hope that a thorough investigation is conducted to hold whoever is responsible accountable.”

An account associated with U.S. President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign compared former President Donald Trump to Hitler. Trump has an Orthodox Jewish daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren; Biden’s vice president is married to a Jewish man. “Comparing a political opponent to Hitler was once nearly verboten in political campaigns,” Politico reported. “But it has become routine for the Biden operation.”

“Germany’s fierce policy on antisemitism smothers the arts,” reads a Washington Post headline. (An online version of the headline reads: “In Germany’s struggle against antisemitism, the arts are suffering.”)

A police chief in East Cleveland, Ohio is said to have sent antisemitic and homophobic text messages dating back several years. Some had “captions that are inappropriate to reproduce here,” Cleveland’s WOIO reported. The chief says the messages were “tongue and cheek.”

Democrats in the Missouri House expelled Sarah Unsicker from the caucus. She is accused of promoting “a series of conspiracy theories on social media,” posting “a photo with an alleged Holocaust denier” and making “antisemitic comments against one of her opponents,” per The Kansas City Star.
Turkey Will Stay Anti-Israel and Anti-US — Unless It’s Forced to Pay for Its Actions
In the first days of the war that broke out following the October 7 massacre conducted by Hamas, Turkey employed a relatively balanced discourse about it. But after the bombing of Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza on October 17, Ankara hardened its stance and bluntly condemned Israel. This change in Erdogan’s rhetoric reflects a long pattern of anti-Israel sentiment. Erdogan’s support for Hamas in the wake of the massacre pulls Turkey, a NATO member, further away from the West. As long as Turkey pays no price for its anti-Israeli rhetoric, it will continue, and the resulting distance between Turkey and the West could have serious consequences.

After the events of October 7, Turkey remained silent. It issued no condemnation of Hamas for the massacre and did not express any sympathy for Israel’s grief and shock. Following the explosion at Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza on October 17, Turkey finally spoke out on the war by issuing a condemnation of the State of Israel.

Turkey’s support for Hamas is not new. The connection between Turkey and Hamas has long been a stumbling block on the path to normalization with Israel, and it became highly visible with the Mavi Marmara flotilla clash in 2010.

In 2011, Ankara issued a direct invitation to Hamas to establish a presence in Turkey, which it immediately did. Ever since, Turkey has served as a safe haven for Hamas senior leadership. Experts label Turkey the second-largest Hamas center after Gaza — a striking fact, as Turkey is a member of NATO.

Turkey is the only NATO country to maintain such close ties to a terrorist organization. The Hamas office in Turkey is well-armed, able to launder money through Turkish financial institutions, and equipped to facilitate the entrance of terrorists into Israeli territory.
News Anchor Fired After Drinking From ‘Pro-Israel’ Starbucks Cup Live On Air
A Turkish broadcaster has fired an award-winning news anchor, accusing her of “covertly” supporting the state of Israel after she was caught on camera during a live telecast drinking from a Starbucks cup.

Starbucks has been accused of propping up both sides of the Israel-Gaza war, a claim the company pushed back on, saying in a statement “our stance is clear. We stand for humanity.”

Meltem Gunay, 45, a veteran news presenter for TGRT Haber and winner of the Best Morning Presenter award, was dismissed this week for cause by the channel, the latest in a string of escalating incidents highlighting tensions in the region.

Starbucks has been accused of propping up both sides of the Israel-Gaza war, a claim the company pushed back on, saying in a statement “our stance is clear. We stand for humanity.”

TGRT Haber, for its part, said the station “knows the sensitivities of the Turkish people regarding Gaza and defends them to the end.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has made several recent proclamations attacking Israel and defending Hamas, claiming the organization was not “a terror group,” and calling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his allies “the butchers of Gaza.”

Israeli food company Strauss recently removed the word “Turkish” from its popular “Turkish coffee” drink, rebranding the packaging with pro-Israel slogans.
Massive Increase Reported in Number of French Jews Immigrating to Israel

To Defeat Terror, Lenient Sentences for Terrorists Must End
Many terrorists are being arrested in Gaza, as well as in Judea and Samaria. Arresting terrorists poses a particular problem: whereas a terrorist who has been killed cannot return to terror activity, a terrorist who has been temporarily detained does not lose his murderous ideology, and once released, he returns to action in the terror group.

If the terrorists and infrastructure are destroyed in Gaza, but in Judea and Samaria the terrorists are not killed or arrested and the terror infrastructure is not dismantled, Israel will fail in its task of toppling these organizations. The question is, what must be done to ensure that these terrorists do not go back to business as usual and rebuild the terror infrastructure?

In the Israeli legal system, including in the military courts, whereas the punishments for terror offenses stipulated by legislation are generally severe, in practice, the punishments handed down to the terrorists are very light. For example, the law - in Israel and in Judea and Samaria - authorizes judges to hand down a 20-year prison sentence to a terrorist convicted of stone-throwing. In actuality, if the terrorist gets a one-year term, it is a considerable achievement.

Judges do not distinguish between cases in which it is appropriate to let the offender be rehabilitated and cases in which the offender, an enemy terrorist, is not interested in "rehabilitation" because he does not see his terror activity as morally flawed. So, for decades, thousands of terrorists have benefited from light punishments that are designed for common offenders and not for terrorists.

Daily, thousands of terrorists benefit from lenient punishments, which defeats the whole purpose. Essentially, all that is needed to change the situation is a different approach by the State Prosecutor and the Military Prosecution in Judea and Samaria. For terror offenses, the prosecution's demand for punishment must differ from its demands for ordinary offenses.

The prosecution must petition to sentence the convicted terrorist to the maximum sentence instead of beginning with punishment at the lowest level and then ascending level by level according to the severity of the offense. If this change does not start with the prosecution, it will not begin at all, as it will certainly not change on the initiative of the judges. There is no need to revise legislation, only to make a policy change that can be carried out immediately.


Col Kemp: Time to attack Houthi assets in Yemen
That simply cannot go on and the way to put a stop to it is by directly attacking the Houthis in Yemen. Their leadership can be targeted and military infrastructure such as missile systems, drone storage sites, radars and coastal guns hit by missile and air strikes. Aside from other ships in the naval coalition, the USS Eisenhower carrier strike group is now positioned off the coast of Yemen and should have an arsenal ready for such action.

The need to take on the Houthis goes beyond their recent targeting of shipping in the Red Sea. They are an ongoing regional threat, having attacked Saudi Arabia as well as Israel. An intensive assault against them would not only degrade their offensive capabilities and perhaps deter further aggression outside Yemen’s borders, it would also give Tehran a bloody nose. The Houthis are effectively Iranian proxies, with their drones and ballistic and cruise missiles believed to be supplied by Iran.

Indeed the hand of Tehran is behind much of the violence in the Middle East today. Iran funds Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza, and might well have played a role in the 7th October massacre against Israel, despite their denial and Washington’s evident desire to play it down. Moreover, Iran’s terrorist proxies in Lebanon, Hizballah, have been directing missile, drone and anti-tank attacks against Israeli forces and civilians in northern Israel. That risks all-out war between the IDF and Hizballah on a scale that might dwarf the Gaza conflict.

Diplomatic pressure stands little chance of success. However, a bit of stick might perhaps make a difference. If the US shows its teeth now against the Houthis, that could not only reduce the threat to Red Sea shipping but also help avert a much more deadly war in Lebanon.


Iranian Dissident Activist Masih Alinejad Reveals Her Source Of Courage
Iranian dissident activist Masih Alinejad said during an interview over the weekend that she gets her courage to continue to speak out against her home country from the brave people who are still there speaking out about the atrocities that Iran’s Islamic government has committed.

Alinejad, who has been the target of assassination attempts by the Iranian government, made the remarks during an interview that aired Sunday on NBC News’ “Meet The Press” with Kristen Welker.

She said that it was “scary” to be in her shoes because of the threats that she faces as she has round the clock protection from federal law enforcement.

“But I don’t want to live in fear, because I know this is the goal of those who are trying to kill us,” she said. “These, you know, killers in Iran trying to put the fear inside us and to push us behind the curtain. I’m not going to let them win. That’s why. And I learned from my heroes within the country, Iranian women, mothers whose children got killed.”

“They hold the picture of their beloved one, they go to the same street that their children got killed, and they say, ‘Here we are. We have no fear of you,'” she continued. “So, I learn from my true heroes within the country. Even women walking unveiled, showing their beautiful hair is a crime. They walk unveiled,and they show their faces, and they say that, ‘You are scared of us not, you know, we, the women of Iran.’ We’re badass.”


IAEA: Iran accelerates production of near-weapons-grade uranium
Iran recently tripled its enrichment of uranium to 60%, reversing a slowdown earlier this year, the International Atomic Energy Agency reported on Tuesday.

Tehran has “increased its production of highly enriched uranium, reversing a previous output reduction from mid-2023,” said the U.N. watchdog, summarizing a confidential report sent to member states and obtained by Reuters.

Iran is enriching uranium up to 60% at the Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant (PFEP) in Natanz and at the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant (FFEP), which is located deep in a mountain, according to the report.

Since mid-June, those plants had been enriching uranium to up to 60% at a rate of about 3 kilograms a month, the IAEA said.

“The agency confirms that, since the end of November 2023, the rate at which Iran has been producing uranium enriched up to 60% U-235 at these two facilities combined has increased to approximately 9 kg per month,” according to the IAEA report.

IAEA inspectors first observed a change in production at Fordow on Nov. 25, after which Iran said the modification was made three days earlier. Inspectors observed the increase at Natanz on Nov. 27. Both observations were verified in the past week.

According to Reuters, many diplomats believe the months-long slowdown was the result of secret talks between the United States and Iran that led to the release of U.S. citizens held in the Islamic Republic earlier this year.


Jewish Americans are fighting anti-Semitism from their neighbors, HOAs and local governments through a series of religious liberty lawsuits: It's an 'ugliness' that can quickly 'slide into violence' attorney warns

Christian magazine ridiculed after insisting Jesus 'was Asian': 'Did you guys read the Bible?'

Kanye West Posts Social Media Apology to ‘Jewish Community’ in Hebrew After Antisemitic Outbursts

Israeli MMA fighter Haim Gozali takes credit for Kanye West's name being written on IDF missile destined to be used in the war on Hamas - after jiu-jitsu black belt previously did the same with Khabib Nurmagomedov

Anti-Israel Social Justice Activist Shaun King Gets Banned From Instagram

John Lewis pauses sale of halal cat food brand after it allegedly used antisemitic passage in Quran to justify its product
A halal pet food company whose product was sold at John Lewis justified the existence of its product by appearing to use an antisemitic passage from the Quran.

The Tiana Halal Pet Food company, based in Manchester, claims the Quran “forbids non-halal meat and animal fat from being purchased and handled by an owner for the purpose of feeding their cat”.

On the company’s website, there was a now deleted document that offers an interpretation of scripture that supports this position, issued by The Olive Foundation, a faith school in Bradford.

In the document, from January 2021 entitled “Are we permitted to buy non-Halal cat food for our pets?”, the author discusses the morality behind purchasing or otherwise benefitting from the fat of a non-halal animal – often the ingredients of cat food – under Islamic law.

The author cites a passage in the hadith, Mishkat al-Masabih 2766, which reads: “Allah cursed the Jews as he had made the consumption of animal fat illegal, so [instead] they sold it and consumed the earnings from its sale.”

It continued: “Allah and His Messenger have made illegal the transacting in alcoholic beverages, non- ritually slaughtered animals, pigs and idols.” He was asked, ‘O Messenger of Allah, what about the fat of non-ritually slaughtered animals, because we coat the ships with it and we lubricate the skins with it and we use it as a lighting fuel for the people? The Prophet responded, “No, it is illegal.” Then the Messenger of Allah continued, “May Allah curse the Jews because when Allah made illegal for them the fat of animals, they gathered them together and sold them and consumed its earnings.”

The author also says it is “not permitted” to feed animals that have not been ritually slaughtered to your pet.

The document, which was taken down from the Tiana Halal website on Tuesday, was reported to the police as a potential race hate crime by members of the public and to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).
Intel clinches $3.2b government grant for $25b chip plant expansion in southern Israel
US semiconductor giant Intel Inc. has inked an agreement with the Israeli government for a $3.2 billion grant to expand its chip manufacturing facilities in Kiryat Gat, in the south of the country, at a total investment of $25 billion.

Back in 2019, Intel held talks for an investment of around $10 billion for the expansion of the Kiryat Gat chip plant, which was reiterated in 2021 during a visit of the chipmaker’s CEO Pat Gelsinger to Israel.

The additional commitment of $15 billion by Intel, Israel’s largest private employer and exporter, comes as the country is in a war with the Hamas terror group, after some 3,000 Iran-backed terrorists crossed the Gaza border in a devastating attack on October 7 that killed over 1,200 people, mostly civilians.

The Israeli government in June this year announced an agreement in principle over the investment, which was confirmed by Intel Tuesday.

“The expansion plan for the Kiryat Gat site is an important part of Intel’s efforts to foster a more resilient global supply chain, alongside the company’s ongoing and planned manufacturing investments in Europe and the United States,” Intel said in a statement.

According to the agreement, the US chipmaker will get a government grant of $3.2 billion, which is 12.8% of the total investment amount. In exchange, Intel committed to buy NIS 60 billion worth of goods and services from Israeli suppliers over the next decade and create several thousand jobs at the Kiryat Gat manufacturing site.

At Intel’s Kiryat Gat plant, the chips that drive most of the PCs in the world have been manufactured for over 20 years, according to the semiconductor.


Barbara Kay: The Christian organization that is a true friend of Israel's
Since Oct. 7, I have been writing columns about alarming spikes in antisemitism and the revival of Jews’ historical fears. But in this, my pre-Christmas and final column of 2023, I feel bound to light a candle instead of cursing the darkness. So I’m shifting my focus to gratitude for Christian philosemitism.

I am grateful for all the warm and sympathetic emails I have received from Christian readers, both Catholic and Protestant, who immediately understood Hamas’s pogrom for exactly what it was — terrorism and an act of pure evil — and were horrified by those who strove to give it “context,” or to explain it as an act of “decolonization” or “resistance.”

Some of them even sought advice from me as to which Israeli charities I would recommend for a material token of their solidarity. These gestures of fellowship in a dark hour were a comfort and a morale booster.

As a Zionist, though, I am particularly grateful for the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ), which has branch offices in 86 countries and represents millions of Christians worldwide.

I am ashamed to say that until this crisis, it never occupied valuable real estate on my J-dar. It was only when I saw a video clip from a Dec. 4 rally against antisemitism on Parliament Hill, where ICEJ members were prominently represented, that my interest was piqued.

Christian Zionists don’t get much respect from secularists in general, but many Jews are conflicted: they appreciate the moral and material support Christian Zionists bring to the table, but, considering the painfully consequential centuries-long history of Christian antisemitism, they are distrustful of contemporary philosemitism.

They tend to believe the objective of present-day Christian Zionism is to effect the transfer of God’s covenant with Israel to Christians, according to the theory of “supersessionism.”

Supersessionism may be implicit in the mission of some evangelical groups, but, happily, a spokesperson for ICEJ responded to my query with an unequivocal statement: “ICEJ is fully opposed to supersessionism. We regard it as antagonistic to the State of Israel and a form of antisemitism. We are Christian Zionists who fully support the Jewish right to their ancient homeland in their full identity as Jews.

“The heart of Christianity was intended to be one of love, truth and justice. These characteristics undergird ICEJ’s unequivocal support for Israel and the Jewish people in the face of historic antisemitism and particularly now, given the Hamas atrocities of Oct. 7.”


Israel's spectacular series of archeological discoveries give new insight on Bible parables
RARE BIBLICAL-ERA COIN FOUND:
A second significant archaeological find, announced by the Israel Antiquities Authority in July, was the discovery of a rare silver half-shekel coin from the time of the first Jewish revolt against the Romans over 2,000 years ago in the Judean desert. The international community mostly refers to Israel’s ancient biblical land as the West Bank, while many Israelis refer to the region by its biblical names of Judea and Samaria.

For biblical scholars, archeologists and Israelis, the excavation of the coin is sensational because it is engraved in ancient Hebrew with the words "Holy Jerusalem." The coin is dated to 66/67CE.

The reaffirmation of the presence of the Jewish people before the establishment of Islam, which unfolded 1,400 years ago in Arabia, debunks the widespread, mostly Palestinian falsehood on social media platforms that Jews "colonized" the biblical land with the re-birth of the Jewish state in 1948 and the Zionist movement in the late 1800s, argue historians.

"One explanation for this find is that the Jerusalem-minted coin fell from the pocket of a rebel who escaped to the desert during the revolt – perhaps on his way to nearby En Gedi," said the Israel Antiquities Authority in a statement in July.




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

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