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Saturday, January 20, 2024

01/20 Links: Support for Israel is stronger than we think; The myth of ‘the Muslim world’; IDF finds tunnel where 20 hostages were held in ‘inhumane conditions’

From Ian:

Israel’s Fight
It had been years since I awoke to the wail of an air-raid siren. A born-and-bred Israeli who has lived in America since 2007, I once almost thought of myself as a world citizen—a rootless cosmopolitan, some might say. I have an American education and job, American friends, and an American accent I picked up from watching The Simpsons. But as it turns out, my roots are deeper than I ever anticipated.

I was at my parents’ Tel Aviv home on October 7. We quickly realized that the attack wasn’t what we called a “regular war.” When the initial death toll passed 100, a number none of us was familiar with, we briefly froze. Then we started moving again. What happened in the days and weeks that followed was both unreal and utterly familiar—the unthinkable happened; yet somehow, we all knew exactly what to do.

Through October, I and other Israelis mapped out bomb shelters on the way to the supermarket. We tried to calculate when to shower to avoid being attacked (after 10:05 pm, Tel Aviv time). We walked down the streets and overheard nothing but conversations about the “situation,” whether it was a group of teenagers parsing the military response or people longing for a lost friend or family member. Everyone knew someone who was lost—missing, murdered, or taken. We tried to learn the names and faces of the hostages and murdered, only to realize that there were too many.

We gave every spare moment to our people, whether it was volunteering to drive food and supplies to bases, emptying the drugstore of toothpaste to send to the front, or hosting a displaced family for dinner. Every Israeli phone became a mini war room, with dozens of WhatsApp groups with names like “brothers for the farmers” or “volunteers to edit videos.” Our camera rolls, once filled with family and vacation shots, filled up with memorials and old photos of the now-dead. Our restaurants became mass-production kitchens for soldiers and displaced people; we didn’t complain when, instead of a table, they handed us knives and cucumbers and put us to work. We walked down the street and met fathers wearing shirts bearing images of their kidnapped children. We cried for people we had never met, wondered idly which photo of our families we might use on a “kidnapped” poster, and who would show up to pay their respects.

This has been Israel for the last three months, and this is how it will be for the foreseeable future. The nation had been at loggerheads over judicial reform, right up until the night of October 6. Unity didn’t come because we healed our internal rifts but because we decided to set them aside temporarily, for better days.
Brendan O'Neill: The myth of ‘the Muslim world’
The hollowness of the Muslim identity has rarely been so starkly exposed. It’s a point Olivier Roy, the French political scientist, has made for some time. In his stirring analyses of Islam in the West, Roy has consistently pointed to the ‘de-territorialisation’ of the new Islamic identity. Among second- and third-generation Muslims in the West, the attraction of an abstract ‘Muslim identity’ is precisely that it allows them to separate themselves both from Western society and the cultural traditions of their own communities. Or ‘folk customs’, as Roy calls them. Uninterested in integration into the West, and disdainful of the ethnic and national heritage of their own parents and grandparents, the self-styled ‘Muslim’ instead signs up to a ‘global and abstract’ ummah, says Roy, ‘an imaginary ummah, beyond ethnicity, race, language and culture, one that is no longer embedded in a specific territory’.

Roy’s keenest insight is that this new Muslim identity is more an offspring of Western globalisation than Eastern fanaticism. The abstracted Muslim builds an identity for himself, like a consumer, in keeping with ‘modern models of individualisation and the free market’. In this sense, the West’s Muslim identitarians are not that different from other Western tribes. Many young Westerners now feel alienated from both nation and community, both flag and family, and prefer to piece together an identity from ideas and beliefs found online and in the other global networks of late-stage capitalism. Only where they wave the Pride flag and ditch their pronouns to signal their rejection of nation and tradition, the Muslim identitarian waves a Koran and denounces the Great Satan of imperialism.

This is not to deny the specific problems posed by the abstracted Islamic identity. As we’ve seen, this identity lends itself to extremism, even violence. Indeed, it is the very ‘de-territorialisation’ of the Islamic identity in the West that makes it susceptible to fanaticism. Unanchored from both the conservative culture of his parents’ and grandparents’ generation and from any sense of connection to the nation or to the West, the abstracted Muslim can come to be unmoored from moral and social norms. And thus prey for extremism. The great tragedy is that our elites, far from seeking to alleviate the alienation of young Muslims from culture and society, celebrate it. They institutionalise it. Courtesy of Britain and America’s identitarian rulers, the abstracted Muslim is now the Muslim. That very phrase – ‘the Muslim community’ – speaks to their reactionary belief that Muslims exist on a plane beyond the issues of nationhood, class and material aspiration that animate other, ‘normal’ communities.

The construction of a narrowly Muslim identity is a terrible idea. It incites young folk in Britain, America and elsewhere to cut themselves off from their own history and their own society. It inevitably stokes feelings of hostility, both for one’s own community and one’s own society. And it can lead, as we’ve seen, to huge numbers of Muslim identitarians taking to the streets of London and other capitals to cheer the fascists of Hamas. Well, they’re part of ‘the Muslim world’ too, right, and thus good? Identity politics is a disaster. It weakens the moral authority of community elders and national institutions and nurtures a kind of savage narcissism. Undoing its damage is the most pressing task we face.
Support for Israel is stronger than we think
Rallying in support of Israel
I see this in my own life – friends who have returned to attending synagogue services, wearing a Start of David necklace, or donning a yarmulke to express their solidarity with the Jewish people in the aftermath of October 7.

The largest gathering of Jews in the history of America occurred on November 14, when nearly 300,000 American Jews and allies gathered on the National Mall in Washington, DC to support our friends and family in Israel. Unity and solidarity continue to be the order of the day.

The extremists using Judaism as their shield blocking access to Grand Central Terminal in New York or chaining themselves to the White House do not represent American Jews nor the American people writ large.

An overwhelming majority of Americans say Hamas bears the responsibility for this war, including the majority of Republicans and Democrats, and the vast majority of American Jews support Israel in its war aims of bringing the hostages home and removing Hamas from power.

The terror that Hamas practices represents an existential danger not only for Israel, but for the United States, the West, and the entire world.

Out of our unity and solidarity, we must fight libelous anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, and antisemitic narratives that are being propagated across the Internet.

Particularly on social media platforms such as TikTok, misinformation and disinformation are flourishing. Congress and its partners are investigating how social media algorithms are elevating anti-Israel and antisemitic speech and how remedial action might be taken.

I have spent much time in Israel since the October 7 atrocities. I see the focus and intensity of the Israeli people in this awful time and their commitment to destroy Hamas, liberate the hostages, and secure a safe future.

Jews in Israel and across the world, are taking constructive action driven by our despair and rage. For now, the center holds.


Seth Mandel: Bibi Under Siege
Public disagreement over end-goals is an indication that members of the war cabinet have broached the subject, behind closed doors, of breaking up the coalition. “As a democracy,” Eisenkot said, “the State of Israel needs to ask itself after such a serious event, ‘How do we continue from here with a leadership that has failed us miserably?’” If this is a trial balloon, the public is letting it float—another sign that the momentum may be with Eisenkot.

In addition, as I wrote two weeks ago, Netanyahu has an intra-Likud challenger, too. Should the current government fall, Nir Barkat, the 64-year-old former mayor of Jerusalem, will seek to replace Bibi atop the party he has led for two decades. Netanyahu’s grip on his party hasn’t loosened much over the years—if anything, it’s gotten stronger. But a black swan event like Oct. 7 and the war can rattle things that seem to be glued in place. Barkat will also certainly point to the national polls to argue that a fresh face might save the party from a full public thwacking.

Bibi is no underdog within the Likud. And he is not powerless as prime minister. Further, anything can happen between now and the next time elections take place. Netanyahu’s political obituary has been written many times, and been wrong every time.

That there are so many sources of political threat should help observers understand why Netanyahu is sticking to his guns on postwar planning for Gaza. Specifically, why he is so willing to explicitly reject Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s repeated suggestions that Israel and the Palestinians get back on the road to a two-state solution.

The Hamas attacks—and the possibility of war in the north, with Iran’s Hezbollah thugs—means there is absolutely no mechanism whatsoever for working toward Palestinian statehood until the situation in both places is stabilized. Gaza is far from that point, and voters aren’t going to penalize Netanyahu for refusing the distraction of the two-state solution at a moment when there is no means and no appetite for it. That discussion will resume at some point, and it will remain the stated goal of much of the Israeli establishment, but it is simply ridiculous to be having that debate right now.

Bibi is constantly taking the pulse of the electorate, and he knows the penalty for upsetting the State Department is less harmful to his prospects than wavering on Israel’s security needs during wartime. If anything, having this particular fight is a lifeline for Netanyahu. If the opposition isn’t careful, they’ll give Bibi all he needs to hang on.
The Scale of Gaza's Terror Tunnels Will Blow Your Mind
The ongoing anti-terrorist campaign in Gaza has given the Israeli military a firsthand glimpse of the elaborate tunnel system Hamas has constructed in lieu of providing basic care to its citizens. The scope of these tunnels, where top Hamas leaders are believed to have been hiding since the Oct. 7 massacre, is almost unfathomable.

According to the New York Times, Israeli defense officials now estimate the tunnel network in Gaza to be somewhere between 350 and 450 miles in length, up from their December estimate of 250 miles. That would make the Hamas tunnel system almost as long as the world's largest subway system in Beijing, which spans more than 500 miles.

Non-terrorist governments spend enormous sums of taxpayer money constructing and maintaining their subway systems. Experts say the Hamas tunnel network, while admittedly less advanced technologically, likely cost billions of dollars—acquired via Iran as well as pilfered "aid" funds—and required an immense amount of manpower to build. The immense cost suggests that Hamas views killing Jews, as opposed to caring for its citizens, as its top priority.

For context, here's how the Hamas terror tunnels stack up against other tunnel systems in major cities around the world:
Hamas, Inc.: The Property Empire That Funded Militant Attack on Israel
It seems a long way from the misery of Gaza's shattered buildings. Situated a short walk from the Golden Horn, an estuary of the Bosphorus in bustling Istanbul, AG Plaza boasts terraces, pools and commercial space, and is designed to attract tech companies that want to benefit from the city's Commerce University campus.

Yet the two places are indeed linked. The glistening project in Turkey's cultural capital was built by a company controlled by what the U.S. Treasury Department describes as "Hamas elements."

The AG Plaza in Istanbul is just one example of how, according to the U.S. Treasury Department, It reveals extensive new links between companies and individuals that the U.S. says are funding Hamas operations.

By examining business records and cross-referencing them with the sanctions lists, Newsweek's investigation shows how Hamas is using some of its key personnel to set up such companies around the Middle East and elsewhere to run its financial empire—often in places where, one expert said, it may find tacit approval for such operations. They include businesses in the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Algeria, Saudi Arabia and Sudan, and may even reveal how the group is expanding into Western Europe.

It also illustrates that while the unprecedented aerial and ground assault on Gaza, which Israel says is necessary to ensure Hamas' destruction, may paralyze the militant group there, it seems unlikely to stop the flow of funds from abroad.

This task—cutting off Hamas funding at source—appears to have become an urgent priority for the Biden administration, which on January 5 announced it is offering a reward of up to $10 million for information that could dismantle the group's economic foundations.

The Rewards for Justice Program aims to disrupt the broader network that sustains Hamas, including targeting any source of revenue, major donors, financial facilitators and financial institutions that facilitate transactions for the group.

The program also focuses on businesses or investments owned or controlled by Hamas or its financiers, as well as front companies engaged in procuring dual-use technology and criminal schemes that financially benefit the organization.

The program reflects the difficulty of targeting such funding. Hamas' web of interconnected companies, which has also enriched senior Hamas figures to a degree unimaginable for the ordinary people of Gaza, is remarkable in its size and complexity.

Newsweek found that one Yemeni business administrator is the joint owner of Hamas' UAE property company, which owned an office block worth $150 million; is the co-founder of a Hamas-linked, publicly traded Turkish construction company; owns 20 percent of a Hamas front company in Saudi Arabia; and is on the board of another Hamas-linked Sudanese company. Separately, company records show an accountant from the West Bank is central to four major construction and real estate companies in three countries: Turkey, Sudan and Saudi Arabia.

The network appears to be growing. A wealthy Sudanese businessman who had close ties to Osama bin Laden, the late Al-Qaeda leader, and who is described by the U.S. Treasury Department as a "Hamas financier," set up a Hamas-linked company in Spain last December, corporate filings show.

In a press release on May 24, 2022, the U.S. Treasury Department estimated that the Hamas-linked construction empire was worth $500 million in total and said that a publicly traded Turkish company—the same company that developed the AG Plaza in Istanbul—was 75 percent-owned by Hamas-connected members in 2018. It alleged that the same company planned to secret away $15 million in shares for senior Hamas figures that same year.
Aviva Klompas: Soviet Cynicism Lingers in Response to War Against Hamas in Gaza
From American college campuses to the cloisters of Western European media rooms, Israel's actions, intentions, and values are once again being misrepresented. Instead of seeing military action as a necessary—albeit gut-wrenching—response to the savagery and nihilism of Hamas, these actions are being portrayed as malicious, opportunistic, and colonialist.

For Jews, this prompts feelings of dismay, but also deja vu. After all, we've witnessed, endured (and overcome) this playbook before—during the Cold War when the Soviet Union leveraged antisemitism for its own political ends (as well as an end in itself).

In the aftermath of World War II and the establishment of Israel as a nation state, the Middle East became one of the major theaters of the Cold War. Arab states were considered proto-socialist by Soviet intellectuals, and the Arab intelligentsia often looked to the Russian Revolution of 1917 for inspiration. The age of Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser was one of "Arab socialism." Meanwhile, as Israel embraced democracy, capitalism and aligned with the United States, Arab states became the only viable potential clients for Soviet power in the region.

While Jews were often prominent in early socialist movements, the attitude of the Kremlin under Stalin and then Khrushchev was one of suspicion and contempt. From an ideological perspective, Jews were monotheists rather than atheists. From a contemporary perspective, they were American allies embarking on an imperialist enterprise. From a historical perspective, the centuries-old folk antisemitism of Europe was easy to awaken in the general population.

In addition to drawing on a medieval legacy of prejudice against Jews, a new form of antisemitism developed in the industrial age—the "socialism of fools," to borrow a term prominent on the German left in the 1890s. The concept, most likely coined by the socialist leader August Bebel, was an indictment of those who blamed Jewish wealth and power for the ills of working people. Instead, Bebel and others chose to face down their own leaders and offer constructive solutions to the plight of their people.

As Soviet client states were dealt resounding blows in their quest to wipe Israel off the map in the 1960s and '70s, a new socialism of fools gained ground as an apologia for inept foreign policies and corrupt leadership.

In this view, Israel was aggressive not defensive; Jews were colonizers, not people with a deep historical and religious connection to the land; the Palestinians were agentless victims with no role or responsibility in their predicament.

Soviet propaganda said that Zionism was fascist, imperialist, racist, colonialist. In other words, Zionists were Nazis. And all Jews, according to the playbook, were Zionists.
Jewish community in ‘state of fear’ as Palestinian flags fly outside schools
Walking through the borough of Tower Hamlets in east London it is clear to see on which side most residents’ sympathies lie in the Israel conflict.

On high streets, in parks, outside shops, and at school gates, the red, green, black and white Palestinian flag is everywhere to be seen – flying high from lamp posts as a symbol of solidarity for those fighting and dying 2,200 miles away in Gaza.

The flags’ proximity to primary and secondary schools, in a borough where 40 per cent of the population is Muslim, according to the latest census, have provoked fear and worry among Jewish parents and campaigners who say these flags are a deliberate attempt to “indoctrinate” children and endanger pupils.

One Jewish family said they have been forced to send their children to be educated in another borough because they cannot “guarantee their safety” in Tower Hamlets. Another family from Wapping said graffiti daubed outside their local primary school that read: “Israel = Scum” was not cleaned away for two weeks.

Tower Hamlets council is facing legal action over its refusal to take down the flags. Lawyers claim the decision is a “criminal offence” and breaches equality and education legislation.

Lutfur Rahman, the borough’s mayor, had previously been barred from public office for five years for corruption, but having served his ban was voted back into the post in elections in May 2022.

The Telegraph observed 10 schools with Palestinian flags near or directly outside their entrances. A further eight had flags hanging high up from lamp posts within 65ft of their grounds, in clear view of classrooms and playgrounds.
Jonathan Tobin: What they really mean when they cry ‘Islamophobia’
Islamophobia struck again in the U.S. Senate’s Judiciary Committee this week. Or so we’re supposed to believe. During the confirmation hearings for Adeel Mangi, a nominee to the Third Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals—one of the courts one rung below the U.S. Supreme Court—Senate Republicans brought up a jarring entry on his otherwise glittering résumé that some people think should not be discussed.

Mangi, a Harvard Law School graduate, is a partner at a large and influential Manhattan law firm. He’s also a supporter of a laundry list of liberal causes that endear him to Democrats. That makes him a natural choice for the lifetime appointment to one of the nation’s most important courts by President Joe Biden. But Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) thought his role as a former member of the advisory board of Rutgers University’s Center for Race, Security and Rights was a red flag.

But as far as committee chair Dick Durban (D-Ill.) was concerned, the GOP’s questions about Mangi were impermissible, even in the context of a confirmation hearing grilling. He said that they were evidence of prejudice since Mangi is a Muslim-American and that the Newark, N.J.-based think tank he was associated with says its goal is promoting, “the civil and human rights of America’s diverse Muslim, Arab and South Asian communities.” Sen. Corey Booker (D-N.J.), compared the quizzing of Mangi to the McCarthyism of the 1950s.

They weren’t alone in making this claim. The Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J., editorialized that the senators who asked Mangi—who, if confirmed, would become the highest-ranking Muslim-American judge in American history—about his ties to the center had created an “ugly spectacle” during which they asked “irrelevant, salacious questions about Israel, Hamas—even whether he celebrated 9-11.”

This point of view was seconded by letters read into the record from the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee, organizations that also bashed Republican senators for badgering Mangi “with endless questions that appear to have been motivated by bias towards his religion.” The liberal groups—always eager these days to lend a hand to their political allies on the left and to virtue signal their belief in interfaith amity—were quick to rise to the defense of the well-connected Mangi and to consider any questions about his affiliations or beliefs to be out of bounds.

After the contentious hearing, the committee approved the nomination by an 11-10 party-line vote. It will now go to the Senate, where it’s likely that a similar narrow partisan vote will put Mangi on the Third Circuit.

But there’s more to this controversy than the usual bitter partisanship that characterizes the efforts of Republicans and Democrats to pack the federal courts with judges who conform to their ideological preferences whenever the White House and the Senate are controlled by the same party. Whether or not Mangi is confirmed is of lesser importance than the principle that Democrats are trying to lay down in this controversy.


Is it time to go?
I sit here staring at my suitcase, contemplating whether it’s time to leave the only home I’ve ever known. I imagine my ancestors, in the frigid cold of Lithuania, a mere 100 years ago, looking at the red flags of a rising tide of Jew hatred and wondering the exact same thing. Everything has an expiry stamp, and South Africa is looking like we’re fast approaching the “best before date”.

A year ago, an American Jewish non-governmental organisation visited South Africa to see whether it should begin planning a mass evacuation for South African Jewry. I laughed it off. I feel a little foolish about that now.

For Jews, this country no longer feels like a safe space or “home”. The government has been captured by radical Islamists and their sympathisers. We have normalised Jew hatred and justified massacres. Our country has lost its soul, and it’s time for our community to start a real and honest discussion about its future.

As a former anti-apartheid activist, the founder of the Jewish anti-apartheid movement, executive director of the Independent Electoral Commission, a cog in the president’s CR17 campaign, and involved in countless social and civic organisations, people have always held me personally responsible for the abundant failures of our government. But I also became the sounding board for many anxious families trying to navigate a very uncertain future.

Over the years, scores of people have asked me whether I believed South Africa held a viable future for them and their children. I always answered with a standard boilerplate reply, “No-one can tell you what to do, it’s a very personal decision, but for me, South Africa is and will always be my home, a place with a Jewish community, more engaged, more vibrant than anywhere else in the world.”

Many of those I counselled decided that South Africa didn’t offer them an attractive future and landed up as strangers in the plasticity of the United States, the tundra of Canada, the misery of London, the bareness of Australia, the obscurity of New Zealand, and more recently, the damp of Amsterdam. Many went back to claim their birth right in Israel, learning how to do their own laundry. True, many also became tax refugees, sipping wine from Franschhoek in their Tel Aviv penthouses, with a view of the Mediterranean.

Today, the South African Jewish community numbers but one third of what it did at its peak. Though our numbers have shrunk, the vibrancy of our community has remained intact.

In the 1970s and 1980s they used to joke, “When the Jews go; it’s time to leave, when the Portuguese go; it’s too late.”

The clock ticked, and stopped on 7 October 2023.


Netanyahu pushes back on report he told Biden he isn’t ruling out Palestinian state
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushed back Saturday against a report that he’d told US President Joe Biden he has not ruled out the creation of a Palestinian state.

The rare statement put out by Netanyahu’s office on Shabbat came after CNN, citing a person familiar with the conversation, reported that Netanyahu told Biden that the public comments he had made a day earlier — in which the prime minister appeared to reject the idea of creating a Palestinian state — were not meant to rule out that outcome entirely.

“In his conversation last night with President Biden, Prime Minister Netanyahu repeated his consistent position for years, which he also expressed at a press conference the day before: after the elimination of Hamas, Israel must remain in full security control of the Gaza Strip to ensure that Gaza will no longer pose a threat to Israel — and this conflicts with demands for Palestinian sovereignty,” the PMO statement said on Saturday afternoon.

The carefully worded statement issued by the PMO did not definitively rule out the possibility of a Palestinian state with less than full sovereignty — a possible option that Biden mentioned in comments after the leaders’ Friday call when he spoke of “types” of two-state solution.

The source had told CNN that the two leaders had a “serious” and “detailed” conversation.

The report noted that Biden has found recent conversations among his administration’s officials on a potential de-militarized future Palestinian state to be “intriguing.”

The CNN report followed similar comments from Biden himself, who said late Friday that the creation of an independent state for Palestinians is not impossible while Netanyahu is still in office, and that the two leaders discussed the issue during their phone call earlier Friday.
Blinken is using blackmail to achieve goal of Palestinian statehood
In his need to be clever and come up with new creative ways to achieve the goal of Palestinian statehood, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has now resorted to the threat that “Arabs won’t pay to rebuild Gaza without a path to Palestinian statehood” (The Jerusalem Post, January 17, 2024).

In short, Blinken is making it clear that unless we want to absorb the full cost of rebuilding Gaza, we are going to have to offer to make nice with the Palestinians by incentivizing their willingness to take on the massive restoration project. And under what framework would that incentive come? Being agreeable to the acceptance of a Palestinian state alongside the Jewish one.

While some might call that a fair exchange, I would call it financial blackmail, knowing full well that Israel cannot afford to take on such an expense when it has its own immense burden of rebuilding all of the southern communities that were destroyed by Hamas terrorists, necessitating the evacuation of those residents.

Since that time, Israel has had to pick up the tab for housing tens of thousands of kibbutz members as well as residents of northern and southern communities where it remains too risky for citizens to live.

Add to that are the staggering costs of war. Dubbed Israel’s most expensive war ever, billions of dollars have already been spent in the fight against Hamas.

Ynet has reported, “The war has already cost some NIS 217 billion ($60 billion) which includes both the cost of the military operations and the broad financial assistance to the economy, including compensation for businesses, paying for property damage, and supporting tens of thousands of evacuees from the Gaza and Lebanon frontiers” (thejc.com, January 8).

According to the report, just calling up 360,000 reserve soldiers “cost around NIS 1 billion,” ($264 million) so the financial burden of fighting terrorism doesn’t come cheap – an important detail which Blinken is dangling in front of Israel.


IDF drops leaflets with pictures of hostages over southern Gaza, seeking info

IDF finds tunnel in Khan Younis where 20 hostages were held in ‘inhumane conditions’

5 IRGC officers, including Syria intel chief, killed in Damascus strike blamed on Israel

These Dem Senators Want Biden To Reinstate Houthi Foreign Terror Designation—After Praising Its Removal As 'Welcome'

In 6th set of Yemen strikes, US hits Houthi anti-ship missile launchers ready to fire

IRGC, Hezbollah helping direct Houthi attacks on shipping — Iranian sources

A Combat Medic’s Heroic Story from October 7



Call Me Back PodCast: The End of a Jewish Golden Age — with John Podhoretz
Hosted by Dan Senor
Will we look back at the past few decades in America as the Jewish ‘golden age’? And is this ‘golden age’ now over? Did October 7th mark the end? Or should the signs have been obvious years ago?

John Podhoretz recently wrote a long essay for Commentary Magazine describing how we got here. He writes: “Several seemingly unconnected arguments and controversies in the United States that had been carefully cultivated over the past couple of decades sprang into full flower on October 8 and thereafter. The weapons were ideas that had flowed for a quarter century from university graduate programs to activist groups to K–12 education and then began to reach millions through online mailing lists, listservs, and social-media entertainment services.”

I wanted to have a conversation with John about how we got here, whether we are truly alone, and are they – actually – coming after us?

John Podhoretz is a return guest to this podcast. He is a writer and public intellectual. He is editor-in-chief of Commentary Magazine and host of Commentary’s critically acclaimed daily podcast, he’s a columnist for the New York Post, and author of several books (including one of my favorites, “Hell of a Ride”, about his time in the first Bush Administration).

Here is the essay we discuss in the episode: “There’s Coming After Us”




The Israel Guys: Is ISRAEL Finally About to Invade LEBANON?
Things are heating up on Israel’s northern border with Hezbollah, and there are some recent indications that Israel may be about to invade Lebanon. We get into all of that along with an absolutely incredible story of courage and self sacrifice from an Israeli on October 7th.


Real Time with Bill Maher: New Rule: The Year of Sanity

Former British MP Captures the Pro-Palestinian Side in One Tweet. It's Horrifying.
They’re not beating around the bush anymore regarding their position in Israel. In the wake of the Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip following the brutal terror attacks committed by Hamas, the pro-Palestinian/Hamas side has been going ballistic. They’ve held numerous rallies worldwide, blocked bridges, attempted to shut down airports, and harassed innocent Jewish bystanders.

They’ve targeted their businesses. It’s not about Israel—it’s about antisemitism. It’s always been that way at its core, though for years, it’s been shielded as an academic disagreement regarding the founding of the Jewish state. Now, these people are just openly pro-terrorist. Take former British MP Chris Williamson, who said that Israel must be destroyed, 'dismantled' like apartheid South Africa or Nazi Germany, adding that it should have never been created in 1948:

And this isn’t the first time Williamson has landed in hot water for sharing anti-Israel remarks. He was investigated for possibly committing a hate crime on social media by police last October. And yes, he said, at the time, Israel had “forfeited” the right to exist (via BBC):
EU’s top diplomat: Palestinian state may need to be imposed on Israel from outside
European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Friday that the only peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict included the creation of a Palestinian state, and he suggested this might need to “be imposed from the outside,” without Israel’s agreement.

Borrell, in a speech at the University of Valladolid in Spain, said that without international intervention, the “spiral of hate will continue generation after generation,” according to multiple Spanish media outlets.

“The actors are too opposed to be able to reach an agreement autonomously,” Borrell said. “If everyone is in favor of this solution, the international community will have to impose it.”

Earlier, US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said there was “no way” to solve Israel’s long-term security challenges in the region and the short-term challenges of rebuilding Gaza without the establishment of a Palestinian state.

International pressure for advancing the two-state solution has intensified in the wake of the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel and the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

But while some international actors believe the violence only underlines the need for a peace deal, Israeli leaders argue the attack highlighted the extreme danger of an autonomous Palestinian entity near its population centers. And amid soaring support for Hamas among Palestinians in the wake of the atrocities, there appears to be little appetite in the Israeli public for peace efforts.

Moreover, Israel fears any boon to Palestinians in the wake of October 7 will only serve Hamas and other extremists a victory, showing violence and terror produce results.
Israel financed Hamas to weaken the Palestinian Authority, Josep Borrell claims
Josep Borrell, the European Union's foreign policy chief, has accused Israel of financing Hamas to "weaken the Palestinian Authority of Fatah."

The diplomat, who has prepared a 10-point roadmap for a potential peace process, did not provide concrete evidence to support his claim.

In scathing comments made during a speech at the University of Valladolid in Spain, Borrell also accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of "personally" derailing any attempt to resolve the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"The bad news is that Israel, in particular its government, is completely refusing – and yesterday Netanyahu said it again as if he was anticipating my words today – to accept a (two-state) solution that he has personally been boycotting for the past 30 years," Borrell said.

His plain-spoken words came just a day after Netanyahu rebuked calls made by Washington to establish a Palestinian state after the war and scale back Israel's military offensive in Gaza.

"We believe that a two-state solution should be imposed from the outside to bring peace," Borrell explained.

"But I insist, Israel, by continuing to reject this solution, has gone as far as to create Hamas themselves. Yes, Hamas has been financed by the Israeli government in an attempt to weaken the Palestinian Authority led by Fatah," he added.


Rep. Jamaal Bowman praises speaker who celebrated Oct. 7 Hamas attacks
Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) introduced a controversial anti-Israel scholar, Norman Finkelstein, who has accused Jews of exploiting the Holocaust to legitimize Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, at a panel discussion on the Israel-Hamas war last Sunday in Westchester County, where the congressman expressed his admiration for the polarizing author and activist.

“I’m a bit starstruck,” Bowman said of Finkelstein, whose 2000 polemic, “The Holocaust Industry,” has faced allegations of promoting conspiracy theories about Jewish extortion, and the other guests who participated in the discussion at the Andalusia Islamic Center in Yonkers. “I watch them all the time on YouTube.”

Finkelstein, a political scientist who in 2007 was denied tenure at DePaul University amid charges of antisemitism, which he dismissed as politically motivated, has long been a divisive figure for his comments on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Jewish son of Holocaust survivors has voiced support for Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militia in Lebanon, and compared Israel to Nazi Germany, among other incendiary remarks.

Following Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attacks, Finkelstein also celebrated the massacre as a “heroic resistance” akin to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, writing that “it warms every fiber of my soul.”

In his introductory remarks, Bowman made no allusion to those comments as he thanked the scholars who had joined the panel “for being here and coming to Yonkers and delivering the truth to us.”

A spokesperson for Bowman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday.

In addition to Finkelstein, the panel included Fida Adely, a professor at Georgetown University who supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement and has accused Israel of engaging in “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians, among other things.

During a fiery speech last weekend, Bowman, who currently represents a sizable Jewish community in Westchester County, accused the U.S. government of providing weapons to Israel as it carries out what he described as “atrocities” in Gaza, urging attendees to hold elected officials “accountable” for remaining silent. “If you’re not voting for a cease fire,” he told the audience, “you are complicit in the mass murder of women and children.”


Jewish students are heroes in the face of campus antisemitism
Resolution condemning Hamas failed
Nevertheless, anti-Israel demonstrations persisted. Students complained about the university administration’s double standard: not taking action in respect of antisemitic demonstrations that violated university rules, while penalizing Jewish students for hanging hostage posters. Kapelyan and others said that American universities discovered freedom of speech when it is against Israel.

Professor Grossman recounted a Cornell University Faculty Senate meeting where the president explained her clarification statement condemning Hamas and antisemitism. Shockingly, subsequent speakers attacked the president’s statement and expressed support for Hamas. The Senate failed to pass a resolution condemning Hamas.

Professor Grossman and the students expressed disappointment at the lack of condemnation from those who did not want to get involved and junior faculty members who privately condemned Hamas but feared saying so in public because of tenure repercussions.

Some students felt betrayed by university communities, which they supported in the past, such as the Women’s communities, students of color, and LGBT, and now failed to condemn Hamas rape and terror against Jews.

Cornell’s Graduate and Professional Student Assembly denied membership to the Jewish graduate students’ community, supposedly for a technical reason. The graduate students said the technical error would be corrected and they could apply again.

I was proud that continued antisemitic behavior has not intimidated the Jewish students but strengthened their resolve to support Israel and oppose antisemitism. When asked about the ongoing antisemitic impact, the students expressed feelings of safety on campus. Jewish groups united and cooperated to resist antisemitism. Support continued from the university president and New York State Governor Kathy Hochul.

Security measures continue. Some students and fraternities expressed support. The Alpha Delta Phi fraternity raised funds from its alumni and donated about $1,000 to the CJL. A Jewish professor wrote an article in the student newspaper condemning Hamas’s atrocities. In November, a group from Monsey, New York, visited Cornell, hosting a barbecue for 150 students at CJL to express solidarity.

The alumni meeting revealed that the October 7 events served as a cathartic moment for the Cornell Jewish community, mirroring events and trends in the general Jewish community. Jewish groups united and cooperated to support Israel and oppose antisemitism.

Previously unaffiliated students and faculty members identified and connected with the Jewish community. There was a shocking realization that a pogrom, mass murder, rape, and terror against Jews can take place in the 21st century, and even be accepted and supported by many nations, journalists, and citizens. October 7 events emphasized the importance of leadership in both universities and nations.

Students who are strong enough to cope with opposing ideas and cultures have deepened their own beliefs and personalities. Jewish students who think they can fit into general student life or general American society learn the hard way that wherever they are and whatever they do, they are still regarded and treated as Jews.

Since October 8, Kapelyan has proudly worn a kippah on campus, symbolizing his refusal to be intimidated by anti-Israel groups and events. He and his fellow students, our campus heroes, stand proud and resilient, fostering a vibrant Jewish community at Cornell, supporting Israel, and opposing antisemitism.
The war against Hamas on campus
BU Students for Justice in Palestine quickly posted their own flyer on October 7 advertising an “emergency” rally and march.

“Long live Palestinian resistance,” the flyer said. “Victory is ours.”

Also on October 7, BU SJP reposted a primer on “armed resistance” that was originally posted by the account Let’s Talk Palestine in June. “Palestinians are forced to engage in an armed struggle in order to defend themselves and their land,” the post reads. “When a group is occupied by a violent power, which seeks to dominate, exploit, or harm them, resistance is not just a right, but a communal duty.”

Other Instagram stories shared by BU SJP on that day claimed, “Palestinians have the right to resist” and described what was happening as “Palestinian resistance fighters … mobilizing” and said these “fighters” had “infiltrated ‘Israeli’ settlements near the Gaza region & activated rockets targeting the occupied 1948 lands (aka ‘state of Israel’).”

Over the next few weeks, students at Boston University moved beyond rejecting Israel’s existence and glorifying Hamas’s attacks on Israelis to other overt acts of antisemitism on campus. The Boston University Greek Rock, which had been tagged with colors of a Jewish fraternity on campus, was painted over with a “Jewish nose” and demonic imagery. Flyers put up around campus of the hostages being held by Hamas were routinely torn down by pro-Palestine students. Some students hid their faces under hoods when they were caught on camera removing the flyers; others were defiant.

“Dude, you literally know I’m Jewish,” one student said with a shrug as she was confronted for tearing down the posters. “You have no right to tell people that their beliefs are wrong… why are you filming this? Why are you filming? What’s your point?”

“You are reading into propaganda,” the female student continued. “You’re supporting occupation. An illegal occupation that’s been happening for seventy-five years.”

The student filming the interaction replied, “Did you read that poster? It’s about Hamas and the atrocities and all of the war crimes they’re committing. It’s not about anything else.”

Another student, when confronted, repeated the line that the hostage posters amounted to “propaganda”.

The anti-Israel and antisemitic behavior quickly spread beyond students and onto official university channels. The Boston University Sociology Department made a post on social media in late October helping Students for Justice in Palestine — the same group that had justified the October 7 terror attacks as “resistance” and a fight for “freedom” — advertise for a campus rally and walk out.

BU Today, a daily news and commentary website run by the Marketing & Communications office, published an article on October 23 arguing that words were being “weaponized” in the Israel-Hamas war. While Elizabeth Coppock, a linguistics professor who was interviewed for the article, accepted that dehumanizing language was being used by both sides, she took issue with the word “terrorists” being used to describe Hamas.

“It’s clear that the use of the word carries an implication which is very much on one side of the conflict, assigning a role to the referent within a larger practice. The assignment of that role is undoubtedly subjective,” Coppock argued. The article was shared on the official Boston University X account, alongside another article that seemingly took Coppock’s advice and referred to Hamas as “militants.”

In early November, BU SJP held a sit-in on campus “to honor the 10,000+ Gaza genocide victims” alongside eleven other campus groups, including the BU Queer Activist Collective, the BU Young Democratic Socialists, the BU Revolutionary Marxist Students, BU SHADES (queer/trans students of color) and more. At the event, students read off a list of “martyrs” of Israel’s war against Hamas, but used names provided by the Hamas health ministry that included dozens of confirmed terrorists. For example, one of the individuals honored by the BU students was Ahmed Siam, a senior Hamas commander that was accused of preventing the evacuation of Gaza residents ahead of Israeli military operations and holding a thousand Gaza’s hostage inside of the pediatric ward of a hospital. Israel claims it has killed or captured up to 9,000 Hamas fighters since the start of the war, making up about half of the total death Gazan toll as counted by Hamas.

The incidents at Boston University came at a time when numerous colleges and universities have come under fire for failing to adequately address rising antisemitism on their campuses. In early December, three university presidents from Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, appeared before Congress to testify as Jewish students claimed they felt unsafe at school. Liz Magill, then the president of Penn, told Representative Elise Stefanik that it was a “context-dependent decision” as to whether or not calling for the genocide of Jews violated campus policies against bullying or harassment. She resigned four days later, along with the chairman of the board. Claudine Gay, the president of Harvard, said that when “speech crosses into conduct, that violates our policies.” After backlash over her remarks and a plagiarism scandal, Gay stepped down from her post but remains a member of Harvard faculty. Sally Kornbluth is still the president of MIT, though she similarly equivocated when asked about calls for the genocide of Jews, stating that comments would have to be directed at an individual in order to violate the campus code.

Boston University did not return a request for comment.


What happened to the American Psychological Association?
The American Psychological Association (APA) has become an increasingly prejudiced and anti-Semitic organization that embraces woke ideology under the rubric of social justice.

In its unapologetic call for decolonizing psychology, the APA has shifted away from its universal emphasis on empathy, compassion, equality, and care for all individuals. The APA now embraces a political agenda that values black, indigenous, and other people of color (BIPOC) group identities over people of European ancestry, the latter of whom are demonized as oppressors responsible for systemic racism, white supremacy, and the subjugation of others.

In its enthusiastic zeal to blame white people for all the ills of American society, the APA has become an unethical paragon of identity politics; it simply parrots the propaganda of social justice activism. In doing so, it contradicts its own professed values.

In promoting a decolonial scheme, the APA further elides the complexity of objective truth and empirical facts, while rewriting psychology as a discipline.

The history of psychology largely derives from the pioneering work of Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis and a marginalized Jew. Now, Jews are regarded as imperial white supremacists and colonizers of Arabs lands. The decolonial rhetoric the APA espouses also reinforces anti-Zionism and animus toward Jews.

In its failure unequivocally to support Israel following the October 7th pogrom committed by Hamas, many psychologists protested the APA’s moral turpitude. Petitions were formed to remove Thema Bryant, the then-president of APA, for her refusal to address explicit anti-Semitism in the organization. Bryant’s politicalization of psychotherapy as a decolonial praxis under the guise of liberation psychology only indoctrinates the next generation of professional psychologists and their patients in a deeply-flawed critical social justice ideology.


Hundreds call for intifada, hail Houthis at Columbia University anti-Israel protest

For most Palestinians, October 7’s savagery is literally unbelievable. Blame the TV news?
No Israeli civilians were killed in the October 7 onslaught on communities near Gaza, Palestinian diplomat Abdullah Abu Shawesh claimed matter of factly to Al Jazeera last week. Accounts of rape and other atrocities “were lies,” he said, dismissing the overwhelming evidence that Hamas’s slaughter of 1,200 people in southern Israel included indiscriminate massacres and sexual violence.

On the Palestinian street, Shawesh’s claims are not the views of a fringe conspiracy theorist, but rather reflective of mainstream beliefs, with polling and other evidence showing high levels of denialism regarding the savagery visited upon southern Israel that day.

According to a Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR) survey published last month, over 90 percent of Palestinians polled believe that “Hamas did not commit the atrocities seen in the videos” on October 7, referring to attacks on civilians. That number rises to a whopping 97% when only including West Bank residents, compared to 83% of Gazans.

The dismissal of the incontrovertible evidence is mainly due to the lack of coverage in Palestinian and Arab media, said Khalil Shikaki, a professor of political science in Ramallah and director of the PCPSR, who conducted the poll.

A full 85% of respondents said they had not seen video footage of the acts, despite widely disseminated videos of the attacks and their aftermath.

Though Palestinians could and can view video footage of atrocities via a wide array of sources online, unless they sought it out, “most Palestinians have not had access to information that showed that Hamas committed atrocities on that day,” Shikaki contended.

Footage of the savagery against civilians, which has been broadcast widely elsewhere, has been largely absent in the Arab media. On Al Jazeera and other networks, coverage feted Hamas or parrotted its claims, portraying the assault as a legitimate military action and ignoring the fact that civilians were brutally targeted for slaughter, to say nothing of the evidence of mutilation, rape and other atrocities.

Survey data from the West Bank and Gaza indicated that those who did see the videos were 10 times more likely to believe that Hamas did commit atrocities against civilians (31%) than those who did not (3%).


Matzah, the Exodus, and the Roots of Anti-Semitism
Tomorrow, synagogues will read Exodus 10:1–13:16, which includes the commandment to eat matzah on Passover. That makes this a particularly appropriate time to remember Don Gaetano Tantalo, an Italian Catholic priest who saved the lives of seven Jews by hiding them for nine months during World War II. Meir Soloveichik writes:
Had he done only this he would have been remembered by our people as a hero, but he did much more. He facilitated the religious observance of his Jewish friends. . . . Perhaps the most striking example of this service relates to Passover. . . . Don Tantalo supplied his Jewish friends with matzah, as well as “brand-new dishes” to fulfill the requirement for kosher vessels and utensils. One can only imagine what this involved in 1944.

The most moving memento of this seder is a simple piece of paper bearing a series of numbers written in Don Tantalo’s hand. This, Yad Vashem tells us, is a calculation of the Jewish calendar written out by the priest so that his Jewish friends would know when their holiday occurred. It is the gift of Jewish time itself. . . . The first commandment given on the eve of the Exodus concerned not matzah, nor bitter herbs, but the marking of time itself: “This month,” God declares to Moses, “shall be for you the first of months.” This means that the Jewish calendar, the Jewish marking of time, is linked to the Exodus; the Jewish understanding of time is bound to the miraculous emergence and redemption of God’s covenant people.

This commandment, too, is found in this week’s Torah reading.

But not all Gentiles are so understanding of the symbolic value of the Jewish calendar. The New York Times published an article yesterday titled “Black and Jewish Activists Have Allied for Decades. What Now?” Its focus is on collaboration between Jews and African Americans in the anti-Israel movement. Suffice it to say that the author describes Kanye West as “seeming to draw from a long line of Black indictments of Jewish power” (such as those uttered by Louis Farrakhan) in his now-infamous 2022 anti-Semitic outburst.

The article’s author interviewed an activist named Nicole Carty, who offered the following insight into the Jewish experience:
Carty noted what she views as a Jewish propensity for “trauma myopia.” . . . There have been, she said, “so many similar genocides.”

“I’ve been to a lot of Passover celebrations,” she added, “and it’s so weird that the story is only of Jewish subjugation, even though subjugation is still so present for other people.” She went on: “Black people still haven’t had their histories honored. We are still gaslit about the impact of slavery and the continued impacts of white supremacy.”

How to make sense of this astonishing statement? Although Rabbi Soloveichik wrote this essay well before the Times article appeared, it contains an answer:
We can now begin to understand the lie that typifies the last thousand years of anti-Semitism: the blood libel, begun in Norwich, England, in 1144. Thomas of Monmouth claimed that Norwich’s Jews had murdered a Christian child in order to use his blood in the production of matzah. The blood libel spread throughout the world, so that for Jews the celebration of Passover, the festival of freedom, was often the most frightening time of the year.

A theological approach allows us to understand how the absurdity of the blood libel captures the essence of anti-Semitism. By turning the matzah, a symbol of Jewish chosenness, into a symbol of ritual evildoing, the libel illustrates how, as [Robert] Nicholson writes, anti-Semitism “turns Jewish chosenness on its head and assigns to the people of Israel responsibility for all the world’s ills.”


Hispanic Christian leaders rally support for Israel
A group of Hispanic Christian leaders, representing a wide swath of a key voting bloc in the 2024 elections, is putting its weight behind Israel and American Jews with a statement issued Friday morning pledging support for Israel and urging “fasting and prayer” for the hostages held in Gaza, Jewish Insider has learned.

The statement was spearheaded by The Philos Project. It comes one week after the Christian advocacy organization brought 32 pastors from 17 states to Capitol Hill in an effort to rally support for Israel.

The letter, signed by the pastors who assembled in D.C. as well as other Hispanic Christian leaders, calls for “the church and all Christian Latinos and Hispanics to join in fasting and prayer until remaining hostages are returned, to speak up against evil with good (Romans 12:21), and to defend the cause of those in need (Proverbs 31:8-9).”

The statement continues, “As immigrants or descendants of immigrants, the signatories view the United States as a unique bastion of freedom rooted in the Hebraic tradition brought to the world by the Jewish people. The joint statement underscores the belief that an America without Jews is an America without a soul.”

Signatories include leaders from the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, Reformed Church in America, National Hispanic Pastors Alliance and the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews.

“Often the Jewish community feels alone and we want them to know they’re not alone, they have friends. Jews and Latinos have coexisted for hundreds of years, from Latin America all the way back to Spain. We respect that heritage and want to make that message heard,” said Jesse Rojo, director of Hispanic affairs at The Philos Project.

“The West has lost its morals and uses the Jewish people and Israel as a scapegoat… our advocacy [includes] demonstrating solidarity with the Jewish community and combating antisemitism,” Rojo continued.

Rojo noted that Hispanic Christian pastors are currently planning a day of fasting in solidarity with the more than 130 hostages that remain captive in Gaza.
During war visit, Oracle CEO affirms commitment to open second data center in Israel
US tech giant Oracle is committed to “double” its investment in the country and open a second underground public cloud center, its CEO Safra Catz said during a visit to Israel.

“As our business grows, we increase our cloud activity in Israel,” Catz told The Times of Israel in emailed comments on Thursday. “We will soon open a second new data center in Israel.”

“Israel must have a secure cloud, so it will be nine floors underground, with the aim of not jeopardizing business survival,” said the Israeli-born businesswoman.

Back in October 2021, Oracle built an underground data center in Jerusalem at a cost of about NIS 1.2 billion ($319 million), and announced plans to set up a second site. The Jerusalem facility functions as a regional cloud provider for Israeli clients. The center spreads across an underground site of thousands of square meters, over four floors, and at a depth of 50 meters (160 feet) below ground level so it can withstand security threats, including rocket attacks.

The data center provides advanced cloud services to companies, organizations and ministries in a variety of sectors — defense, government, banks, insurance, infrastructure, technology and retail — and allows them to transfer servers and services into the cloud data centers provided locally. The new second data center is an expansion of the cloud services and is expected to be set up in the north of the country.

Last year, US tech giant Amazon announced plans to roll out its cloud-based regional data center project in the country. That’s after Google’s parent company, Alphabet, activated its local cloud region for Israel in 2022. Before that, Israel used cloud services outside the country’s borders provided by, for example, Google and Amazon Web Services data centers in Ireland, the Netherlands and Frankfurt.






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