2025 ~ Elder Of Ziyon

Friday, October 24, 2025

Trump’s Barghouti Gambit: A Dangerous Play for Peace (Daled Amos)

By Daled Amos

Maybe it was inevitable.

Maybe it was only a matter of time before Trump decided to push Israel in the direction he wanted. After all, he wouldn't be the first US president to pressure Israel. On the other hand, he may be the first president to be so blunt about it.

TIME Magazine did an interview with the US president on October 15 and published it on Thursday. One of the questions was whether he thought Israel should release terrorist leader Marwan Barghouti:

TIME: Well, Marwan Barghouti is seen by many as the one figure who could unite Palestinians behind a two-state solution. He tops most polls amongst Palestinians for whom they would vote for in a presidential election. But he’s in prison, and Israel has refused to let him out. He was arrested in 2002. Ron Lauder, a big support of yours, recently encouraged Israel to let him out. Do you think Israel should release him from prison?

Trump: I am literally being confronted with that question about 15 minutes before you called. That was the question. That was my question of the day. So I’ll be making a decision.

I'll be making a decision...?

Besides the fact that this is not his decision to make, there is an implication that the US president is willing to apply pressure on Netanyahu to release a convicted terrorist to further his own personal plans for peace...and for a potential Nobel Peace Prize.

Trump is already getting plenty of cover from Ronald Lauder for pressuring Israel. Lauder is the president of the World Jewish Congress, besides being a Trump ally. He was very clear on his support for Barghouti's release:

I think that the fact that he's thinking about it is a great step in the right direction. A two-state solution is only possible if you have a good leader and Marwan Barghouti will be the right leader for it. Now it doesn't have to happen in one or two years–it could be three, four or five years, whatever time it takes. But once you start having peace between Israel and the Palestinian people, you have the future of a peaceful Middle East.

Perhaps Trump views Barghouti the way Reuters does. The headline of the Reuters report on Trump's comment was Trump mulls whether Israel should free jailed Palestinian political figure. But Barghouti is not some jailed politician, and Lauder should know better than to publicly challenge Israel's security interests.

Barghouti is currently serving multiple life sentences for his 2004 conviction in connection with attacks in Israel that killed five people. He is a senior member of Fatah and former chief of its Tanzim militant faction, playing a key role in the Second Intifada.There are security issues at stake that are for Israel, and only for Israel, to decide.

In addition to Lauder, Barghouti's wife urged Trump to push for his release after hearing that he is ready to make a decision.

This follows the push in Israel for the annexation of the West Bank. In that same TIME interview, Trump said:

[The annexation] won't happen because I gave my word to the Arab countries. It will not happen. Israel would lose all of its support from the United States if that happened.

The US president believes he has a say in Israel's plans for annexation since it directly impacts both the peace process that the US is invested in and the agreements that he has made with various Arab leaders. But insisting on freeing a terrorist leader is an entirely different story. We all know that Trump is not a polished impromtu speaker. It is unilikely he would force Israel's hand on such a release. That may explain why there has not been an outpouring of indignation from Israel in response to Trump's comment.

But Barghouti is not a “political figure.” He’s a convicted murderer who orchestrated the killing of innocent Israelis. To even entertain the idea of his release is to erase the line between diplomacy and delusion.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

The Iran Update from Critical Threats analyzes what's been reported from Lebanon, and it is not good.

Hezbollah may have deterred the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) from disarming the group. A figure close to Saudi officials told Lebanese media on October 19 that Saudi Arabia has grown frustrated with the Lebanese government’s ”slowness” in implementing its Hezbollah disarmament plan and threatened to pull funding for the LAF, which suggests that Saudi Arabia has concerns about the government’s willingness to disarm Hezbollah on a reasonable timeline.

US Special Envoy Thomas Barrack stated on October 20 that the Lebanese government’s principle of monopolizing all weapons to the state remains more of an ”aspiration than [a] reality” due to the Lebanese government’s fear of civil unrest and Hezbollah’s political dominance.

Hezbollah officials, including Secretary General Naim Qassem, have continuously threatened to instigate armed conflict and anti-government protests since the Lebanese government agreed to disarm Hezbollah in August 2025. Hezbollah, for example, informed Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and LAF Commander Brigadier General Rodolphe Haykal in August 2025 that the Lebanese government’s implementation of its plan to disarm Hezbollah would cause confrontation. LAF and Lebanese officials have consistently raised concerns about conflict breaking out between the Lebanese state and Hezbollah during the disarmament process. Haykal previously told Lebanese Parliament Speaker and Hezbollah ally Nabih Berri that the LAF will not ”clash with a key component of the country,” likely referring to Hezbollah. LAF leadership and members of Lebanon’s security forces were also reportedly divided over their willingness to act against Hezbollah, according to unspecified sources speaking to Lebanese and Saudi media in August 2025.Hezbollah’s threats may have exacerbated Lebanese government officials' and security forces’ concerns about internal conflict, which may have deterred the Lebanese government from disarming Hezbollah.

Hezbollah was on the ropes. The people of Lebanon were angry at the party for dragging the country into a war with Israel to help Hamas. Their new leader does not have the respect and influence of Hassan Nasrallah. If the LAF had acted immediately and with authority, it could have disarmed Hezbollah and the Shiites could have done nothing about it because they claim they only act in the best interests of Lebanon.

But Hezbollah played an old game that still works: threats. They would not have started a civil war, but the mere threat was enough to force the Lebanese government to blink. And for every day it delays, it gets that much harder to implement the disarmament plan.

Even worse - the disarmament is not even happening in the South. There have been no reports of LAF raids on any active Hezbollah areas. Lebanon is implementing the other parts of the US proposal but ignoring the main one of becoming the monopoly of arms in Lebanon.

The irony is that Lebanon is complaining that Israel has not fully withdrawn and still attacks Hezbollah positions - but the entire reason Israel keeps attacking is because the Lebanese army isn't doing what it agreed to do. If Hezbollah was excised from south of the Litani River, the Trump administration would almost certainly pressure Israel to abandon its positions. (Not that I think they should, )

If Lebanon had done what it promised, Lebanon and Israel could have become allies. Instead, Lebanon's cowardice almost guarantees the next war.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

NYC hate crimes for Q3 remain overwhelmingly against Jews. And this is BEFORE Mamdani becomes mayor.

The New York Police Department Hate Crimes Dashboard is now updated through the end of September, and the pattern for the third quarter for Jews remains as bas as it was for the first half of the year.

There were 93 hate crimes in the city - and 51 of them, or 54%, were against Jews. In second place was Male Gay, with 12, followed by Black with 10.

There were 4 hate crimes against Muslims in this time period, meaning antisemitism is over 12 times more prevalent than "Islamophobia."

And remember when the media was aghast at increased anti-Asian hate crimes? That problem seems to be solved, with only 2 of them in the quarter, same as transgender.

And this is what New York City looks like before Zohran Mamdani takes over.

In May, current Mayor Adams established the Mayor's Office to Combat Antisemitism, which looks like it is already doing some positive things. But will Mamdani keep it going, or listen to its recommendations? My guess is that he will establish a similar office to fight the nearly invisible Islamophobia, take away resources from the antisemitism task force and ignore its recommendations.

If I ran it, my first recommendation would be "don't allow a socialist who supports Palestinian terrorism and has no problem with globalizing the intifada to become mayor."

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

10/23 Links Pt2: Investor: CNN should fire Christiane Amanpour for ‘antisemitic’ comments; Steven Van Zandt and Gene Simmons: “Never Seen Antisemitism Like This”; Requiem for the Pro-Israel Democrat

From Ian:

Hitler Is Back in Style

There was a time when antiwar meant moral clarity. Now it means moral confusion. Libertarians who once “denounced the empire” now parrot Iranian and Russian propaganda. At a 2023 antiwar rally in Washington, Russian flags were visible among attendees while speakers included Antiwar.com’s Scott Horton and Daniel McAdams. They fly foreign adversaries’ flags at peace rallies and amplify Osama bin Laden’s “Letter to America” as if it were a libertarian manifesto. When leftists on TikTok were seeing wisdom in Bin Laden’s hatred, libertarians were me-too’ing.

When Putin speaks of “traditional values” or denounces “American hegemony,” there’s a not-so-subtle chorus in American libertarianism nodding along—not because they believe in decentralization, but because they hate the same enemies: Israel and the United States.

These days, the Ron Paul Institute—what I once believed would become a haven for noninterventionist thought—now routinely publishes apologias that find a comfortable home on Russian State television. McAdams of the institution parrots Kremlin framing with such frequency that even mainstream conservatives have noticed.

This Israel derangement syndrome extends beyond America’s borders.

Many of the Israel derangement syndrome libertarians and paleo-populists, for instance, despise Javier Milei, the anarcho-capitalist president of Argentina, not entirely for his policies, but because he defends the West—and the Jewish tradition that helped shape it. Moreover, Argentine libertarians of which I am very fond and in correspondence with have memories of the Islamist Buenos Aires bombings in 1992 and 1994. They are not so naive to the dangers to their rights from Islamic terrorism as their American cousins, who romanticize the musings of Osama bin Laden and claim Hitler was right.

The strange new sympathy for tyrants, the contempt for Israel, the obsession with power hierarchies—all stem from a single contagion: the Howard Zinnification of the liberty movement. Zinn reduced history to a morality play of oppressors and oppressed. Today’s populist-libertarian pundits do the same: Every bomb is a war crime, every Western leader a colonialist, every Israeli soldier a Nazi. It’s not foreign policy—it’s theology.

And Tucker Carlson, once the Buckleyite gatekeeper, now amplifies it all. The man who once fled conspiracy theorists now lives off them. The man who once laughed at “truthers” now platforms them. He didn’t evolve; he adapted. Carlson realized where the audience had migrated—and followed it. The market rewarded outrage, not reason. And so Tucker cashed in his principles for ratings.

Irish president frontrunner accused Israel of ‘Jewish supremacy’ years before current Gaza war

The frontrunner to become Ireland’s next president previously accused Israel of “Jewish supremacy” and said she was reluctant to condemn Hamas.

Catherine Connelly, the favourite to win the largely ceremonial post in tomorrow's elections, told BBC Radio Ulster last month that she was “reluctant to unequivocally condemn” the attack on October 7, when 1,200 people were killed and over 250 taken hostage.

The independent left-wing lawmaker claimed that Sir Keir Starmer should not try to stop the terrorists playing a role in a future Palestinian state.

“I come from Ireland which has a history of colonisation. I would be very wary of telling a sovereign people how to run their country,” Connolly said.

She later said on RTÉ's Morning Ireland that she has "utterly condemned" Hamas "over and over".

Connolly went on to describe Hamas terrorists as “part of the civil society of Palestine”.

"[Hamas] were elected by the people the last time there was an election. Overwhelming support for them back in 2006 or 2007. They are part of the civil society of Palestine. We're reliant on them for figures in relation to the deaths."

She said both Israel and Hamas have committed war crimes and that Israel has behaved like a "terrorist state", and the October 7 attacks were "absolutely unacceptable".

Meanwhile, in October 2021, years before the recent Gaza war, Connelly – then serving as deputy chairperson of the lower house of Ireland’s parliament – wrote in a parliamentary question that Israel was trying to “accomplish Jewish supremacy.”

CNN should fire Christiane Amanpour for ‘antisemitic’ comments, says Warner Bros. Discovery investor

The widower of legendary corporate gadfly Evelyn Y. Davis is calling on Warner Bros. Discovery’s chief David Zaslav to fire CNN anchor Christiane Amanpour over her “antisemitic” claim that Israeli hostages were “treated better” than Gazans — saying her apology last week is “not enough.”

Taking a page from his late wife’s playbook, Patterson, a WBD investor, sent a sharply worded letter to Zaslav on Monday demanding Amanpour’s dismissal.

“As a stockholder in WBD, I urge you to fire Christiane Amanpour for her antisemitic statement that Israeli hostages were treated better than average Gazans,” the investor wrote in the letter obtained by The Post.

“This is an outrage to American and Israeli heroes who are fighting a war against Hamas and other terrorists. It is an outrage to Holocaust survivors and their families. Fire Amanpour to prove you disagree with her vile statements.”

Patterson, a 70-year-old former diplomat, said he was motivated to act after watching Amanpour’s comments, which aired live on Oct. 13 as Hamas released the last 20 surviving hostages under a US-brokered cease-fire.

Amanpour told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins that the hostages “were probably being treated better than the average Gazan, because they are the pawns and the chips that Hamas had.”

Hours later, Amanpour walked back the statement on air, admitting her phrasing was “insensitive and wrong.”

“From speaking to many former hostages and their families, like everyone I’ve been horrified at what Hamas has subjected them to over two long years,” she said, recounting their accounts of starvation, beatings and years spent in underground tunnels.

But Patterson told The Post he was unmoved by Amanpour’s statement.

Steven Van Zandt and Gene Simmons Push for Jewish History Education to Combat Hate: “Never Seen Antisemitism Like This”

TeachRock executive director Bill Carbone added, “We’re making American history education more inclusive and engaging by centering it on real people’s stories. Students don’t just learn about immigration — they experience it through Irving Berlin’s journey. They don’t just study the Holocaust — they reckon with it through Anita Lasker-Wallfisch’s survival. That’s history that sticks. By teaching students to see Jewish Americans as the complex, creative, resilient individuals they are, we’re combating antisemitism at its root, before ignorance can become hate.”

In the moderated conversation, Van Zandt was quick to note that “people who take music class do better in math and science, studies show.” Van Zandt’s pitch on education is rehearsed but nuanced: “Testing is not teaching. We need to truly teach the important work of our history to these kids so that they have the right tools to ensure our future is the right one.”

The cross-curricular approach, Van Zandt explained, is predicated on the idea that “if kids like one class and one teacher, they’ll be more engaged.”

“We hope to be that class. We want to figure out a methodology to keep this generation engaged,” he said. “How do you get these kids attention? Curate the education. Give them a reason to be in that classroom.”

Simmons added, “Antisemitism is one domino that connects to the next domino. If we’re not careful, history repeats itself.”

Simmons immediately recalled his mother’s story in the Dachau concentration camp, noting that the past is anything but the past and that educational resources are vital toward breaking the cycle of antisemitic language and tropes.

Speaking of his own Italian immigrant history, Van Zandt added, “Those immigrants planned on assimilating, integrating into the country they were going. We weren’t allowed to speak Italian in the house. Integrate and assimilate and then bring your culture to the land you’ve arrived. We did this so you would keep your culture alive. I think Italian food was an example of something that worked out okay here!”

Van Zandt was quick to note that acknowledging and recognizing the value of different cultures is vital but that education is the necessary catalyst to any real appreciation, particularly for the next generation of students.

Van Zandt’s organization, TeachRock, has reached more than one million students through 80,000 educators in all 50 states, since its inception in 2002. The online educational resource, which was launched to help educators integrate popular music into the classroom, has been free and accessible to anyone online since 2013.

The organization’s next event is Sunday, Oct. 26 at The Stone Pony in Asbury Park, New Jersey, and will include performances from Van Zandt’s Disciples of Soul band, Jesse Malin, Darlene Love and others.

My speech from our stacked and packed show at @3ArenaDublin last night. @Disturbed #AllAreWelcome pic.twitter.com/nHru6TUGvH
— David Draiman 🟦🎗️🇺🇸🇮🇱✡️☮️ (@davidmdraiman) October 23, 2025

10/23 Links Pt1: Closing the Book on ‘Genocide,’ ‘Deliberate Starvation’ and other Modern Libels; Marwan Barghouti Is Not Your Guy; The Media’s War on Israel - with Matti Friedman

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: Closing the Book on ‘Genocide,’ ‘Deliberate Starvation’ and other Modern Libels

One reason is that the war’s end makes it possible to start compiling definitive statistics. And those statistics make it crystal clear that UN-affiliated agencies and their partner NGOs have conducted large-scale fraud, the blast radius of which has incinerated the credibility of much of Western academic and “humanitarian” institutions.

Let’s start with food. Salo Aizenberg—who probably deserves some sort of medal for his painstaking work compiling the true statistical toll of the war—pointed out this week that the UN-backed IPC declared a Gaza famine in August, and that we can now check the numbers against the prediction and verify exactly what the IPC got wrong.

Between the famine declaration and the cease-fire, there should have been 10,143 famine deaths in Gaza. Using Hamas’s own numbers of such deaths—which are obviously not undercounted—the total famine deaths in that period was 192.

That means the IPC predicted about 10,000 famine deaths and was short by about 10,000. The IPC is now at Candace Owens’s level of credibility and statistical reliability.

There was no famine. That’s not an opinion, it’s an indisputable fact. Also indisputable is that there was no near-famine. It wasn’t a close call.

That, by the way, is good news. Although the anti-Israel activist world was hoping for mass starvation, those of us who aren’t monsters are very happy that there was no famine in Gaza. Pay attention to those who dispute this and those who show their disappointment.

Then there is the main event: the accusation of “genocide.” While this has been debunked again and again and again throughout the war—to the extent that anyone accusing Israel of genocide has disqualified themselves from legitimate debate over matters of war and peace—now that there is a cease-fire, we can work with steady numbers.

Aizenberg noted in September that using Hamas’s own statistics, and subtracting natural deaths and fatalities caused by munitions fired by Gazan combatants, one gets a total of about 33,000 civilian casualties. The widely accepted number of combatant casualties is at about 25,000.

Every one of those 33,000 civilian casualties is a tragedy and a testament to the effectiveness and ruthlessness of Hamas’s human-shield strategy. That number also means that there are fewer than 1.5 civilian deaths for each combatant war death, an almost unheard-of level of care for civilians by the Israeli army.

Gil Troy: The "Do It Yourself" Ally: Israel's Victory Is America's Too

While addressing the Knesset, U.S. President Donald Trump correctly called the Gaza breakthrough "an incredible triumph for Israel and the world....We have stood together through thick and thin....We have built industries together, we have made discoveries together, we have confronted evil together."

Other allies depend on America to fight for them; Israel fights independently, defending itself and bolstering the U.S., while saving the world along the way too.

Last January, outgoing President Joe Biden noted: "Did you ever think we would be where we are with Iran at this moment? Iran's air defenses are in shambles. Their main proxy, Hizbullah, is badly wounded....And if you want more evidence that we've seriously weakened Iran and Russia, just take a look at Syria." Since then, Tehran has been weakened exponentially more.

Since Oct. 7, 2023, Israel's many battlefronts - on sea, in the air, on the ground, and online - have served as an extraordinary laboratory for game-changing improvements. U.S. generals have watched the IDF fight in cities and tunnels effectively, losing 470 soldiers in the Gaza ground offensive that many predicted would cost thousands of Israeli lives. In repelling Iran's ICBM attacks and over 37,500 rocket attacks, Israel - with U.S. help - taught the world how to defend a small, densely populated area against massive bombardments. These and many other military and medical breakthroughs will be saving American lives in hospitals and battlefields for years to come.

Since the 1898 Spanish-American War, Washington has repeatedly felt compelled to fight wars worldwide. By contrast, Israel has always been the U.S.'s only "Do it Yourself" ally. The Jewish state usually fights alone, using American technology and know-how, improving it, and, by winning, bolstering Washington's position militarily and diplomatically. In 1967 and 1973, Israel defeated Soviet-trained and armed Arab troops, enhancing the Free World's defense posture during the Cold War.

Despite all the pressuring, demonizing, and naysaying, Israel has won overwhelming victories in the war on terror. Thanks to this two-year war, the Islamic Republic's planned Ring of Fire engulfing Israel, while not extinguished, has been smothered. Israel showed it still knows how to fight hard and win a war. And, once again, Israel's decisive win has boosted America too.

U.S. Plan Splits Gaza in Two - One Zone Controlled by Israel, One by Hamas

The U.S. and Israel are considering a plan that would divide Gaza into separate zones controlled by Israel and Hamas, with reconstruction only taking place on the Israeli side until Hamas can be disarmed and removed from power.

On Tuesday in Israel, Vice President JD Vance said there are two regions in Gaza, one relatively safe and the other incredibly dangerous, and the goal is to expand the area that is safe. Presidential advisor Jared Kushner said no funds for reconstruction would go to areas that remain under Hamas control, and the focus would be on building up the safe side.

The U.S.-brokered ceasefire that took effect Oct. 10 drew a yellow line on the map that marks the Israeli military's area of control. It is essentially a thick cushion hugging Gaza's borders and surrounding the area of Palestinian control. The Israeli zone is supposed to shrink as various benchmarks are hit.

The administration had considered rebuilding areas that Hamas didn't control even before the ceasefire, in hopes it would improve conditions for Palestinians and serve as a symbol of a post-Hamas Gaza, officials said.

The plan to build up Israeli-controlled areas in Gaza could weaken Hamas politically while enabling Israel's military to conduct operations that further erode the group's ability to fight, said Ofer Guterman, a senior researcher at the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies. "It's doable and optimal," Guterman said of the plan.

Palestinian Victory Brought Closer By Yelling 'Go Back To Poland!' At Iranian-Born Israeli (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook and Substack pages.

New York, October 23 - The epic struggle to liberate Islamic land from the vile clutches of Zionist imperialist settler-colonialists drew nearer today when an activist shouted toward a Jew born in the Middle East, to parents of ancient Middle East pedigree, that he should return to Eastern Europe, observers reported.

Iranian-born Jew Daniel Rahmani, visiting relatives in Queens for several weeks, was overheard on the street in conversation with one of those relatives earlier today, by a frequent participant in various campus protests and pro-Palestine rallies throughout the city, talking about everyday life in Giv'at Massua, a southwestern neighborhood of Jerusalem. The activist, Schuyler Pitts, 30, reacted to the intolerable evidence of a Jew living in the ancestral Jewish homeland, by yelling, "Go back to Poland, you colonizer!" His outburst brought a Free Palestine closer than ever, according to analysts.

Rahmani's parents fled Iran when Daniel was a toddler, in the wake of the Islamic Revolution of 1979. His family had lived in Babylonia and in Persia, as Iran had been known, since the destruction of the First Temple in Jerusalem in 586 BCE and the attendant exile of the Jews from the Kingdom of Judah in ancient Israel. The Rahmani clan members who managed to escape in time initially settled among other Persian Jews in the New York area, while Daniel's parents eventually moved with him and his three siblings to Israel, to join other relatives who had escaped the Ayatollahs. The shouting, while it confused Rahmani and his cousin, nevertheless heralded surely-imminent victory for Palestine over the European usurpers from Poland.

Pitts voiced satisfaction at his accomplishment. "Always gratifying to strike a blow for decolonization and indigenous sovereignty," he pronounced. "That Khazar doesn't belong anywhere but in Poland, or Russia, or wherever it is Jews really come from. They're not real Jews anyway."

The Khazars inhabited a kingdom in Eastern Europe during the early Middle Ages; legend tells that the kingdom, or perhaps only some high-ranking nobles and the king, converted to Judaism. A now-debunked theory charges that Ashkenazi Jews, who lived mainly in Poland, Belarus, Lithuania, and surrounding areas, descend from Khazar converts, and not, as genetic, linguistic, and cultural evidence demonstrates, from Jewish communities that took root in Southern and Western Europe following the Roman destruction of the Second Temple and the attendant exile of Jews from Judea in the first and second centuries CE, only later migrating east at the invitation of the Polish king.

He admitted that he had considered knocking off the Jew's head-covering - in this case a gray flat-cap - but thought better of it upon realizing he could not convincingly connect the gesture with anti-Zionist action. "If it were a yarmulke," he explained, using the Polish-Yiddish word for the Jewish kippah, a word that Rahmani has never known, "it would make sense. But this was just a plain old hat. Knocking it off wouldn't have brought the liberation of Palestine from the River to the Sea measurably closer, the way yelling 'Go back to Poland' does. I should go do it again."

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

Every political movement faces moments that reveal what it truly values. The Graham Platner affair in Maine is one of those moments, not because of its particular sordidness, but because of what the response reveals about how political actors actually weigh competing values against each other.

The facts are straightforward:. A Senate candidate backed by Bernie Sanders has an SS Totenkopf tattoo on his chest. He claims he got it drunk in Croatia in 2007 without understanding its meaning, yet acquaintance says Platner explained the Nazi connection to him in 2012. His former political director resigned, calling the tattoo antisemitic and warning Democrats against being "painfully stupid." Yet Sanders deflects, asking whether we care more about a tattoo or healthcare policy. The online left has made supporting Platner a litmus test.

I have been arguing in my ethics articles that values are real - a part of our very beings. Every human issue can be looked at through the lens of what our values are and how we prioritize them. In this case, we are seeing how the Democratic Party is prioritizing its values.

Power is a value in politics, though not a moral value. It is an instrumental value. You cannot enact healthcare reform from the minority. You cannot confirm judges without winning elections. Power enables the pursuit of substantive goals.

But instrumental values must be weighed against moral values. Every political actor does this constantly. It cannot be avoided - but it must be transparent.

The Democratic response to Platner fails badly. Rather than acknowledging the tradeoff, party leaders pretend there is no tradeoff to make. Sanders reframes the question as though caring about antisemitism and caring about healthcare are mutually exclusive. DNC chairman Ken Martin calls the social media posts "not right" but "not disqualifying," as though those categories exhaust the possibilities. Representative Ro Khanna invokes the principle of not engaging in personal destruction "especially in our own party," with that final clause doing all the work.

What would honesty look like here? It would sound something like this: "We believe Senator Collins must be defeated in 2026. We believe the policies we would enact with that Senate seat matter enormously. We have concluded that despite serious concerns about this candidate's judgment and character, the instrumental value of winning this seat outweighs those concerns." One might disagree with that calculation, but at least it would be a real argument about real tradeoffs.

Why don't the Democrats do that? Because they would essentially be saying that they prioritize power over principles, which is not something most voters want to hear.

Supporting Platner means accepting that someone who wore Nazi imagery for eighteen years, who may well have understood its meaning much earlier than he claims, and who demonstrated such catastrophically poor judgment even in the most charitable interpretation, deserves a Senate seat. It means deciding that defeating Susan Collins is worth the message this sends about what behavior disqualifies someone from representing the party. It means concluding that the instrumental value of power outweighs these costs.

Again, politicians make these calculations all the time. Both parties are more than willing to overlook their side's moral lapses. When Marjorie Taylor Greene was still considered mainstream Republican, her own antisemitism was largely papered over by her party. Smaller lapses in judgement are weighed against larger political goals, and in some cases the importance of political power do indeed outweigh those lapses. So does the existence and quality of any apologies. But if the party is not willing to say that out loud, then they have another ethical problem.

In this case, the willful blindness is extreme. Platner's excuse is a lie, and everyone knows it. If a Republican had done something similar the Democrats would be filling up the media with outrage.

The deeper problem is that refusing to acknowledge value calculations of power vs. morality makes it impossible to establish any meaningful boundaries. If there is no honest weighing of power against principle, then there is no way to say where the line is. What level of past misconduct would be disqualifying? What evidence of antisemitism would matter? The answer cannot be "none," but without transparent weighing of values, that becomes the de facto position.

This matters beyond Platner's candidacy. Every political movement claims to stand for certain principles. But principles come into tension with each other and with the practical requirements of wielding power. The test of a serious political movement is not whether it faces such tensions, but whether it faces them honestly.

Values must be weighed. Power is among those values, instrumental but real. The question is whether we are willing to do that weighing in the open, where the costs and benefits can be seen and debated, or whether we will pretend the weighing is unnecessary and hope nobody notices what we have chosen.

But when you look at the world through the prism of values, it is very clear which values the Democratic Party have chosen in this case.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

My book finally got a bad review on Amazon - and it is great

My first book, "Protocols: Exposing Modern Antisemitism" was released nearly four years ago now. I had only positive reviews - nearly all five star, a couple of four stars.

I had expected a bunch of fake negative reviews to move my ratings down, but there were none - until this week.

This one-star review is comedy gold:

This book is pure Israeli propaganda. Everything that they claimed to be today's "antisemitic conspiracy theories", have now proven to be true. Including: Israel is committing an ethnic cleansing and also controls the US government and influences the US media. They literally said that it is antisemitic to claim that Israel is committing a genocide, and that that is a "conspiracy theory". If that doesn't tell you that everything in this book is utter propaganda then I don't know what will.

Also, yes, AIPAC's website even boasts that 98% of those that they endorsed in 2024 were elected to Congress, so you almost cannot get elected if you do not support Israel. And most if not all of the large TV networks are owned by Jews. So that is not a conspiracy theory either.

It isn't antisemitic to say that Israel controls the US government - because it is true! And Jews control all of the TV networks! It isn't conspiracy theory - it is established fact, like I saw in the Goyim Defense League flyer I found on my lawn!

How absurd it is to argue that saying that we have a Zionist-Occupied Government and the media controlled by secretive, shifty Jews is antisemitic!

I'm happy to say that my book has not aged at all. It is still relevant and still selling, although mostly in audiobook version (which is interesting in itself.) If anything, it is prophetic about what has happened since it was published in 2022.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

Islamic Jihad publishes list of its top leaders killed - and it includes a "journalist"

Islamic Jihad published a list of 15 leaders of the terror group "martyred" by Israel. 13 of them had never been listed as killed previously.

Two of them had been previously listed as killed previously. One was Islamic Jihad's media spokesperson, Naji Maher Abu Sayf.

The other was Wael Rajab Abu Fununa, one of the members of Islamic Jihad's staff council.

He had been previously listed in numerous lists as a journalist killed in Gaza, the general manager of the Al Quds channel.

Here he is in his other role:

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10/22 Links Pt2: How Israel debriefed its survivors of hell; Trump’s granddaughter Arabella Kushner sends handwritten notes to freed hostages; A Jew hunt at City University

From Ian:

John Podhoretz: Still Fighting After All These Years

Commentary Magazine turns 80 this month. Back in November 1945, it was a modestly funded intellectual exercise with spectacularly immodest ambitions: to explain America to the Jewish people and to explain the Jewish people to Americans.

That is the gift of the intellectual magazine, and the profound service it provides its readers and the culture at large. The deep human impulse to make these arguments, the need to have these things out, is still everywhere and is unchanged. So new media have arisen to make them possible. The citizen journalism practiced by bloggers has now been professionalized, by Substack, for example, and the free market of ideas supported by readers who feel they profit from these ideas has never been more vibrant. Here at Commentary we play with ideas in a new way every weekday on our podcast.

But the greatest of all modern vehicles for the presentation of ideas in readily consumable but still formidable fashion is still the magazine. And there are so few of any value still left, still publishing, still thriving. Well, Commentary is still here. Still publishing. And judging by the enthusiasm of our audiences, we are not only thriving at present but show every sign of continuing to thrive in the future.

I have been the editor of Commentary for 16 years now, constituting one-fifth of its lifespan. The arguments and analyses that have been hosted in these pages during my tenure have spanned the Obama, Trump, Biden, and second Trump administrations; the rise of a dangerous new left activism; the emergence of a politically destabilizing populist movement on the right; the politicization of gender itself; the poisoned chalice that higher education has become; the weaponization of public health; the deserved collapse of trust in once-unassailable institutions; a psychic crisis of meaning for America’s youth that seems to be related to the omnipresence of always-connected internet devices; and an explosion of Jew-hatred without precedent in this country’s history.

The Jewish state faced the worst threat in 50 years on October 7, 2023. We were all forced to note, with horror and disappointment, how voices expressing sympathy and understanding for our plight began to go quiet while the fight to speak freely as Jews and for Jews to live freely in their own nation stretched across two long years. We saw such people lose their stamina, their heart, their spine, and go supine.

But not you. Not you, reading these words. I hope we did our part to help you retain your stamina, to strengthen your heart, and to stiffen your spine. And I hope that we set your minds on fire.

May Commentary live to be 120.

Antisemitism: Face it. Fight it. Finish it

When Hamas unleashed its massacre on Oct. 7, 2023, the world witnessed the barbaric result of organized hatred. In the two years since, StopAntisemitism has been working not as a bystander but as an active counterforce. We have exposed more than 1,000 egregious antisemites, causing over 400 of them to lose their jobs, while more than 300 remain under investigation. This is a record of moral clarity in dangerous times.

The work of StopAntisemitism is not an academic exercise, but a necessary response. Jew-hatred was already rising before Oct. 7, with a strengthening alliance between the radical left and radical Islam. College campuses were already a hotbed of false narratives, bigotry and harassment of Jews and Israelis. And we were fighting it.

But since that earth-shaking day, the scale of Jew-hatred exploded, and almost overnight, the reports flooding into our organization increased by roughly 1,500%. Our team had to double in size just to vet, verify and act on those alerts.

And in the time since, in an unhappy new twist, the cancer of antisemitism is spreading to some previously reasonable voices on the political right. These voices, once well-known television anchors and personalities, seem to have bought into the hatred for no apparent reason but to take advantage of social media clicks to sustain their popularity.

From day one, we adopted an expose and hold accountable model, showcasing people who espouse Jew-hatred, whether they be public figures, workplace actors, academics or healthcare professionals. In each case, our goal is not vengeance but rather consequence. When those who traffic in antisemitic slurs and conspiracy theories realize they cannot hide behind anonymity, when their institutions feel pressure, that cost matters. That is true accountability.

Some will balk at that, asking, "Isn’t this cancel culture? Isn’t it enough to argue and debate?" Not in this case. Antisemitism is a metastasizing cancer. When society allows Jew-hatred to fester unchecked, it does not stop at targeting Jews. It corrodes trust, erodes institutions, infects public discourse and undermines the very foundations of pluralism and democracy.

We have seen what happens when antisemitism creeps in. University after university failed Jewish students, even as threats mounted. Our 2024 Report on Campus Antisemitism documented a 3,000% increase in anti-Jewish incidents. Students told us that 43% would not recommend their school to a Jewish peer.

John Podhoretz and Dan Senor: Podcasting Through Two Years of Hell

JOHN PODHORETZ: Dan, you and I are in a unique position because for the last two years, our respective podcasts have become a key source of a complex blend of information, news, perspective, and comfort to people deeply affected by October 7 and the two-year war that followed. And one of the things that Call Me Back and The Commentary Magazine Podcast have in common is that this was entirely situational. We didn’t plan it. We didn’t think that this is what we were going to talk about for two years on the morning of October 6, 2023. You had been doing this podcast about what America might be like after the coronavirus. Then, after a couple of months of podcasting about the aftermath of October 7, Call Me Back took off like few things I can think of taking off. It was like suddenly two months in, it was all I heard people talking about, you shot up the Apple charts. Why did you connect so viscerally with so many people?

DAN SENOR: What I felt was missing from all the international press coverage and many of the conversations was Israelis speaking to the world from Israel trying to explain the dilemmas and the challenges they were dealing with as they were confronted with this war—Israelis who don’t always agree with each other and don’t always agree with certain parts of our audience. I had no idea there’d be a big market for it. I had no idea there’d be that much interest in it. It was who I wanted to hear from. And in hearing these Israelis wrestle with these challenges and talk about these challenges, they also explained basic facts and basic history when the conversation and the press coverage turned so dark over here and was so unnerving to so many of us in the Jewish community. I mean, it’s crazy. There’s your podcast, there’s my podcast; we can probably count on one hand how many others that actually just provided basic facts, basic history. Listeners were like, Oh, this could be my anchor. This could be the place I go to just make sure I’m not losing my mind. No, Israel’s not actually trying to impose a mass famine on the Palestinian people. No, Israel’s not targeting hospitals in order to kill babies in incubators. We were providing that content to people who needed it. One thing I did, and you sometimes give me a hard time about, is I included in the conversations people who are considerably to the left of me. And I know that made some of our listeners crazy, but I just thought it was important to keep everybody in the room, you know. I’ve heard from many people over here in this community, in the Diaspora community, including someone who’s a close friend of yours and mine, say to me, “You know, your podcast is holding the whole community together. Like, otherwise it’s gonna split apart.” Now, I don’t think our podcast was single-handedly doing that, but in a sense, it’s a metaphor.

JOHN: There’s also a question of family.

DAN: I think we talk about how October 7 and the war that followed touched every single Israeli. As Tal Becker said on my podcast, Israel is a very small country, but it’s a really big family. As a percentage of the population, more Israelis served in this war than Americans fought in World War II. And those family connections are broader than that. We have that, right? You have a nephew and a nephew-in-law serving. I have sisters who are living through this and whose daughters and sons have all served in some way, been called up for reserve duty, have spouses and boyfriends who’ve all been called up, one of whom is literally right now in Gaza waiting for when he gets pulled back but hasn’t been pulled out yet. What’s the secret sauce? I think part of it is that we have this very intuitive, instinctive sense for what’s going on. Because we’re talking to family members who are in it every single day.

10/22 Links Pt1: ICJ rules Israel ‘has not substantiated’ allegations of Unwra Hamas ‘infiltration’; Former Doctors Without Borders leader calls group 'accomplices of Hamas'

From Ian:

Meir Y. Soloveichik: Marco Rubio in the City of David

In September, Secretary of State Marco Rubio delivered one of the most meaningful American speeches in recent memory. Rubio was in Jerusalem, and the setting was dramatic. In the wake of all that has transpired since—the assault on Gaza City, the negotiations to end the war, the arrangement for the return of the hostages—Rubio’s remarks have been overlooked, and perhaps understandably so. Nevertheless, it is vital that his speech not be forgotten by Americans, because though it was delivered in Jerusalem, it was really about America—about the uniqueness of our founding and history and what the 250th anniversary of the United States should mean to all of us.

The speech was framed around Zionism in its most literal sense, given that it was delivered inside Zion itself. “Zion” is the name that King David assigned to the mountain where his capital Jerusalem was founded, where his psalms were written, and where his dream of a Temple was given expression—a site known, then as now, as the “City of David.”

Rubio had come with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to attend the inauguration of the opening of the “Pilgrimage Road”—a path by which hundreds of thousands of pilgrims, millennia ago, ascended to the Temple from the pool of Siloam within David’s city to Judaism’s holiest site. Its discovery and excavation are among the triumphs of archaeology in our time. The road is, one might say, the ultimate reminder of who the “indigenous people” of Zion really are, demonstrating as it does continuity between their presence there at least 3,000 years ago and the presence of 7 million Jews in the Jewish state today.

Rubio implicitly referenced this fact in the opening of his remarks, making mention of America’s upcoming anniversary and how America was actually “young” compared to the nation whose story is represented by where he stood. He then turned to the meaning of the Founding and what set America apart.

The United States was founded on a powerful idea, defined not by geography, ethnicity, or anything else. It was founded on the very powerful principle that the rights of mankind come from their creator.

These are words whose constant reiteration is necessary and proper, especially from a Republican administration, since we are now hearing from some affiliated with the conservative movement that America is not really defined by an idea. The secretary of state was not, of course, saying that America is utterly disconnected from the circumstances of its location. Rather, he was asserting that, at its core, America is a covenantal nation, defined by a set of principles. And by linking America’s more recent founding to the ancient and modern capital of Israel, he implicitly reminded us that, as Rabbi Jonathan Sacks put it, “America and Israel, ancient and modern, are the two supreme examples of societies constructed in conscious pursuit of an idea.”

Appropriately, Rubio then turned in his remarks to the site where he stood and gave voice to Isaiah’s vision of all the earth learning from biblical teachings in God’s sacred city that “from Zion shall go forth the Torah, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.” It was only because of this word of God, Rubio argued, that the American idea came to be enunciated.

Gil Troy: Moynihan’s Warning, the World’s Folly, and Israel’s Resilience

Fifty years later, and despite the resolution’s repeal nearly 34 years ago, many believe that the Israel-bashers have won, since the Zionism-is-racism libel is trending worldwide.

Yet anti-Zionism keeps failing as Zionism and Israel thrive. In 1975, Israel’s Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin used the enmity to unite his people. “Zionism, Judaism, the State of Israel, and the Jewish people are one,” he said, locating the pull to the Land of Israel and the longing to return to Zion at Judaism’s core. Israeli cities rechristened “United Nations Street”—so named in November 1947—as “Zionism Street.” Thousands of schoolchildren protested, with Golda Meir explaining Zionism to 10,000 high school pupils in Tel Aviv. Students distributed half a million buttons proclaiming: “I AM A ZIONIST.”

Similarly, decades later, on the worst day in modern Israeli history, Zionism was vindicated. On October 7, the Israeli government failed. The IDF failed. But Zionism succeeded. Zionism never promised a state on “a silver platter”—a warning by Israel’s first president, Chaim Weizmann. If Zionism began as a national survival strategy for the Jewish people, it worked that day as a call to immediate and vital action. The thousands of Israelis who mobilized and repelled the jihadi marauders represented a living, breathing, dynamic Zionism no libels can touch. By giving the Jews an ideology and a methodology, Zionism motivated Israelis to fight and ensured that they were sufficiently well trained and well armed to save Israel.

Simultaneously, October 7 unleashed waves of Zionist activism worldwide. Within weeks, Diaspora Jews contributed a billion dollars. Missions kept visiting Israel, bringing helmets and Kevlar vests, socks, and home-baked cookies. Washington, D.C., hosted the largest Jewish protest in American history, with 290,000 marchers and another 250,000 joining via livestream.

The fighting in Israel, the volunteering and donating throughout the Jewish world, reflected the Zionist ethos of self-defense. But something more spiritual happened, too. Even Theodor Herzl understood that Zionism would not just revive the Jewish body but the Jewish soul as well. “Zionism,” he said, “is a return to Jewishness even before there is a return to the Jewish land.”

As Jew-hatred surged, Jewish leaders described “the surge” in communal engagement and identity. From Hillels to synagogues to day schools, rates of participation and passion peaked.

In Israel, the patriotism—and the mourning— triggered a profound Zionist revival. Hundreds of stickers immortalizing fallen soldiers’ defining slogans decorate Israel’s public spaces with medleys of Zionist ideas and sensibilities. Some are Zionist classics, including Am Yisrael Chai (the Jewish people live) or Ain Li Eretz Acharet (I have no other homeland). Some are more personal but deeply Zionist, including “We chose to make aliyah to this land, we won’t let anyone hurt it.”

Most reflect a gritty, resilient generation of New Jews living the Zionist dream. Many urge their survivors to maintain Israelis’ characteristic love of life: “be happy,” “be good.” Evoking the traditional phrase ve-samachata be’chagecha (delight in your holidays), one sticker reads: ve-samachata be’chayecha (delight in your life). Others are feistier, explaining, “Soldiers don’t love what they do, they learn to love what they must do,” insisting that it “doesn’t matter what happens, you’ll get over it.” Crossbreeding optimism and fortitude, that well-known Israeli phrase yehiyeh beseder assures: It’ll be all right.

This Zionist revival rests on three pillars:
First, although Jew-haters don’t make the Jew—the Jew makes the Jew—the Jews can’t make Jew-haters disappear without fighting back. Ra-ther than being defensive, one must champion genuine liberalism. Social Justice Zionism or Liberal Zionism should seek to rescue “social justice” and “liberalism” from the illiberal liberals. True social justice begins with rejecting all bigotry, articulating an egalitarian liberalism recognizing everyone’s inherent rights and dignity, without romanticizing those deemed “oppressed” and demonizing the supposed “oppressors.”
Second, Responsibility Zionism expresses the Zionist commitment to Jewish self-determination. Caring Zionists must assess what Israel and the Jewish people need to flourish, internally. Responsibility Zionism is rebuilding Israel’s south after the Hamas attack—and the oft-neglected north, wounded by decades of Hezbollah fire from Lebanon. It’s trying to make Israel’s politics and society worthy of the soldiers, the reservists, the volunteers, and their families. And it’s tree planting, not firefighting; being proactive, not just reactive.
Finally, Identity Zionism builds from the “I” to the “us.” In an age of alienation, of what Émile Durkheim the sociologist called anomie, in a throwaway society where many feel disposable and can easily cancel others, Zionism emphasizes history, identity, continuity, community—roots and ties. Zionism offers a Jewish counterculture improving on the outside world while cultivating a broad, unifying, welcoming peoplehood platform for the Jewish world. Secular Jews can find meaning without God, and religious Jews can build a broader sense of belonging.

Fifty years ago, Moynihan’s colleague at the UN, Israeli Ambassador Chaim Herzog, called Zionism “nothing more—and nothing less—than the Jewish people’s sense of origin and destination in the land, linked eternally with its name.” He went on: “It is also the instrument whereby the Jewish nation seeks an authentic fulfilment of itself.” He stood in the UN on that November day, representing “a strong and flourishing people which has survived” all the haters before “and which will survive this shameful exhibition.” Herzog then ripped up the resolution.

Zionists worldwide will continue seeking authentic fulfillment for their people and themselves. And they should challenge everyone to transcend today’s deep-rooted anti-Zionist mania, disdaining it, in Herzog’s words, as just another “passing episode in a rich and an event-filled history.”

Former Doctors Without Borders leader calls group 'accomplices of Hamas' over Gaza war response

Doctors Without Borders, or Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), is an organization that most assume is focused on delivering much needed aid and supplies in harsh environments without bias or favor. However, one of the organization’s former leaders is criticizing how MSF has handled the situation in Gaza, going so far as to say its members have acted as "accomplices of Hamas."

Alain Destexhe, who worked as a doctor with MSF in the 1980s before serving as the group’s secretary-general in the 1990s, told Fox News Digital the organization moved away from its impartial, humanitarian roots.

"Well, it would have been impossible at the time when I was secretary-general of MSF to be as biased as MSF — Doctors Without Borders — is now in Gaza. We were defining ourselves as a neutral, impartial and humanitarian organization," Destexhe told Fox News Digital. "I think now MSF in Gaza is really taking the side [of] Hamas and against Israel.

"Americans need to know that Doctors Without Borders is not anymore the organization that it was 15 or 20 years ago. It has become a biased, partial and militant organization."

On Oct. 12, 2023, less than a week after Hamas carried out its brutal massacre and took more than 250 people hostage, MSF condemned the slaughter but also called for an end to Israel’s actions in Gaza, making no mention of the hostages.

"Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is horrified by the brutal mass killing of civilians perpetrated by Hamas, and by the massive attacks on Gaza, Palestine, now being pursued by Israel," the organization wrote. "MSF calls for an immediate cessation to the indiscriminate bloodshed, and the establishment of safe spaces and safe passage for people to reach them as a matter of urgency."

Beyond the organization’s condemnation of both the massacre and Israeli actions, Destexhe uncovered several social media posts on accounts allegedly belonging to MSF staffers appearing to celebrate the Oct. 7 massacre. Destexhe explained to Fox News Digital that much of MSF’s staff in the Gaza Strip are Palestinians, not foreign workers.

Destexhe acknowledged that to operate in Gaza, MSF has to work with Hamas because the terror group has control over "all civil society and all the medical facilities" in the enclave. He said operating alone would have been impossible during his tenure as secretary-general and that the organization would have said it could not work with "a totalitarian and terrorist organization."

"The only thing that MSF can do is to say, 'No, we don't want to be part of this. We have to quit Gaza. And we don't want to become accomplices with a terrorist organization like Hamas,'" Destexhe told Fox News Digital.

MSF has faced scrutiny over its actions and statements regarding the situation in Gaza.

Earlier this year, MSF launched ads against the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a U.S.- and Israel-backed organization. MSF accused GHF of partaking in "systemized violence."

GHF spokesperson Chapin Fay called MSF's accusations "false and disgraceful." He said the organization was amplifying misinformation.

The day the 20 living hostages were released, the media told us that all Israelis were celebrating. But that wasn’t quite the truth. For many of us, it was more of a collective sigh of relief. The last of the live hostages had made it out. It had not been at all certain they would, or that they had even survived. Thank God they were out.

But this peace deal was nothing to celebrate, because it would not bring peace and would not keep us safe. How could it when in exchange for those 20 living hostages, tortured and starved for 737 days, we released 1,968 Arab terrorists from our jails, 250 of them serving life sentences for murdering or planning the murders of Israeli Jews? Only 200 would be expelled, the rest would be released into the wild.

For our dear 20 hostages, we were releasing murderers back into our cities and towns to ride on our buses and trains, to work and shop freely alongside Israelis. At least this time we were getting more bang for our buck. In 2011, Yahya Sinwar, the eliminated architect of October 7, was released from Israeli custody along with 1,026 of his fellow terrorists, all for a single Jew, Gilad Shalit.

This time we “only” had to set 2,000 more monsters free among us for 20 live Jews and 28 dead.

How could this be right—even celebrated? How many more Sinwars/October 7ths will there be? Why on earth would this bring peace? It is a fact so blatantly obvious: releasing terrorists from Israeli custody never brings peace.

It didn’t this time, either.

Hamas has already broken the truce — attacking Israeli troops and murdering two IDF soldiers. It broke it earlier by not releasing all the hostages all at once. Broke it so many ways, so many times. Playing Hamas terrorist chicken, as always.

But at the point where they attack and murder Jews, it should have been over. Done.

One would expect an honest US broker at that point, to back Israel to the hilt and call it all off. All the wonderful peace. But no. Instead we get Jared Kushner chiding us, “A lot of people are getting a little hysterical about different incursions. But what we are seeing is that things are going in accordance with the plan. Both sides are transitioning from two years of very intense warfare to a peacetime posture.”

Yeah, Jared. Tell that to the families of Yaniv Kula and Itay Yavetz. Do you think they're being a "little hysterical about different incursions?"

Tell us more, oh Jared Kushner who has business dealings with the Hamas-supporting Qatar. Tell us what you told Lesley Stahl, about how murdering two of your fellow Yidden qualifies as acting in good faith “as far as we’ve seen” (emphasis added):

Lesley Stahl: Now, part of the agreement was that, as you had mentioned, Jared, 28 bodies, Israelis were supposed to come out in phase one by now. Do you think that Hamas is breaking the agreement? Is it bad faith?
Jared Kushner: So this has been a very intense effort on behalf of our joint center with Israel and with the mediators in order to convey whatever information Israel has on the whereabouts of the bodies to the mediators and to Hamas in order to retrieve them.
Lesley Stahl: So you're involved in this part of what's going on right now. Are you trying to reassure the Israelis that Hamas is really looking for the bodies?

Jared Kushner: We're just trying to convey information and make sure that everyone knows the expectations and push both sides to be proactive in terms of finding a solution instead of blaming each other for breakdowns.

Lesley Stahl: But are you saying publicly right now that Hamas is acting in good faith, seriously looking for the bodies?

Jared Kushner: As far as we've seen from what's being conveyed to us from the mediators, they are so far, that could break down at any minute. But right now we have seen them looking to honor their agreement.

The things he said!

It made me want to vomit. Still does.

How could anyone use the word “honor” anywhere near "Hamas?" And what does honor mean to Jared Kushner—that Hamas can kill a couple of Jews and we’ll look the other way, nudge nudge, wink wink?

Jared Kushner asserts a moral equivalence between monsters and (Jewish) victims, characterizing Israel's reaction to the Hamas attack as no different than the attack. It's just two sides "blaming each other." Yet two more young Jewish men now lie cold in their graves.

How can we speak of peace when they're killing us. How do we celebrate while our hearts are bleeding.

Jared, somewhere inside your bespoke Savile Row suit I know you remember Beeri, what you saw there, when the air was still thick with the smell of what had happened there.

Why have you chosen not to be, after all, a Jewish hero?

When will you give us a reason to celebrate?

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)