2025 ~ Elder Of Ziyon

Saturday, December 06, 2025

12/06 Links: American Antizionism; Natasha Hausdorff on Israel Eurovision row, new UN Resolutions and Marwan Barghouti; Scarlett Johansson’s ‘Eleanor the Great’ lives up to its name

A year after the Six Day War, the French scholar Leon Poliakov published the penultimate volume of his magnum opus, a millennia-spanning four-part history of antisemitism. He concluded Volume 3, From Voltaire to Wagner, with the declaration, “Historians are not prophets, and I will refrain, finally, from making any prognosis. Only the future will show if, and to what degree, a hatred of the Jews, justified theologically until the French Revolution and ‘racially’ until the Hitlerite holocaust, will have a third incarnation under a new ‘anti-Zionist’ guise.”

Poliakov did not refrain for long, perhaps because the future showed itself more quickly than he had anticipated. Before turning to the final volume, which carried the history of antisemitism through the rise of Nazism, he rendered his prognosis on the Jewish question of his own day. “[T]he devil painted on the wall has swapped his name from ‘Jewish conspiracy’ to ‘Zionist conspiracy,’” Poliakov wrote in a 1969 monograph. The title of that book, De l’antisionisme à l’antisemitisme, telegraphed the argument. “Under the pretext of a critical attitude toward the Jewish state and its supporters, an ancient passion inspired by hatred continues to make its way.” A meticulous historian, Poliakov then added a nuance that current debates over antizionism routinely ignore: “However, it does so in different ways, depending on the region and the regime.”

Two years after Hamas’s “Al-Aqsa Flood” (we must confront the name for reasons that I will explain below), it is less the horrors perpetrated on October 7 than the traumas of October 8 that have forced an American Jewish reckoning. What does it mean that, of all places, America’s campuses and cities were the most likely to meet Jews in their grief with rationalizations, exhilaration, silence, abandonment, and shunning? Jews in the United States are now discovering how antizionism makes its way here in this region. The experience has caught them intellectually, emotionally, and politically unprepared. I am neither a pastor nor a politician, so I cannot offer much on the latter two. But to those hoping to gain some intellectual footing, I can offer my perspective as a sociologist who has written on social movement activism, a historian who has studied antizionism in the USSR, and a professor who has been navigating academic antizionism in the US since the 1990s. These shape how I understand what American antizionism is, how educational failures enabled it to gain a foothold, how it has become more dangerous (at least for now) than race-based antisemitism, and how Jewish Americans might begin to blaze a path forward.

Nicole Lampert: All the ways Israel is being cancelled

Spain, Ireland and the Netherlands boycotting the Eurovision Song Contest due to Israel’s inclusion in the competition is only the latest attempt to “cancel” the Jewish state over its war against Hamas.

Indeed, only this week, it emerged that Guinness World Records had informed the Matnat Chaim charity that its plans to bring together 2,000 people to donate kidneys couldn’t become an official record because it is an Israeli organisation. The London-based organisation claimed this was fair, as it was also banning submissions from the Palestinian territories unless they were done in co-operation with the UN (an organisation with which Israel now refuses to work due to perceived bias).

Guinness World Records justified its policy on the basis of “just how sensitive this is at the moment”.

“Sensitivity” has become a familiar refrain, as Israel has been cancelled by individuals and organisations in almost every area of public life since Hamas’s attack on the country on Oct 7 2023.

Academia
The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel has been going strong for more than 20 years in academia, led by the University and College Union, which represents lecturers, but it took on a new momentum after the Israel-Gaza war started in 2023.

In general, the attempted boycotts have not worked in the UK, but in Europe, it is a different story. Universities in Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy and Spain have increasingly voted to suspend agreements with Israeli institutions.

Emmanuel Nahshon, head of an Association of Israeli Universities task force to combat academic boycotts, told The Times of Israel that his organisation tallied 300 instances of boycotts in the year following the Oct 7 attacks, and a year later, that number had more than doubled to 700. This includes boycotts on individual researchers, as well as restrictions on those working with institutions.

In other cases, known as “shadow boycotts”, universities simply stop working with Israeli researchers or avoid engaging in joint projects without giving any reason.

Senior West Midlands Police chief 'apologises to Jewish community in Birmingham for telling MPs they BACKED ban on Maccabi Tel Aviv fans for Aston Villa match'

A police chief has apologised after appearing to mislead MPs by telling them that Jewish people in Birmingham had backed a ban on Maccabi Tel Aviv fans attending an Aston Villa match last month.

West Midlands Police assistant chief constable Mike O'Hara told a select committee last week that concerns were raised by the religious community over supporters of the Israeli football team travelling to the city.

He said this contributed to the decision to bar the fans from their Europa League fixture at Villa Park on November 6, which sparked a huge backlash - with claims officials were caving into Islamist thugs.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer was among those who condemned the ban, declaring: 'We will not tolerate antisemitism on our streets.'

However, the force has now been accused of using the community as a shield to avoid scrutiny after sources within the local community claimed there was no 'meaningful consultation' before the ban was decided.

One source told The Sunday Times that O'Hara's comments were a 'twisted' distortion of the facts and consultation with Birmingham Jews had been minimal.

The senior officer has since written to representatives of the city's Jewish community to apologise, emphasising he had 'no intention' of implying its members 'had explicitly expressed support for the exclusion of Maccabi fans'.

He also accepted it was 'not the case' that members of the Jewish community had expressed support for the ban and will 'ensure this is clearly articulated' to MPs in further written questions.

In a letter seen by The Sunday Times, O'Hara wrote: 'I am aware that there is some consternation within the local Jewish community about what I presented on Monday. There were a number of questions asked, often with several parts and secondary points.

'Please can I apologise and make very clear that it was not my intention to imply that there were members of the Jewish community who had explicitly expressed support for the exclusion of Maccabi fans.

'Having re-watched the footage, I am sorry if my response has created confusion by suggesting members of the Jewish community had expressed support for the ban. From my perspective that is not the case and I will ensure this is clearly articulated when I respond to the further written questions we are anticipating.'

Sweden’s funding scandal empowered antisemitic networks, endangered Jews

In a country that prides itself on democratic and liberal values, social media discourse has become increasingly toxic, fueled by misinformation about Jews, Israel, and the Middle East conflict, often amplified by the very institutions that received public funding.

A central question emerging from the scandal is how a developed state with a robust regulatory framework failed to detect a phenomenon involving $100 million in misallocated funds.

It appears that Sweden’s commitment to a tolerant and open immigration policy created a dangerous blind spot that allowed extremist groups to exploit the system.

Authorities reacted only after the investigation went public. Schools were closed, arrests were made, and assets seized. But for the Jewish community, much of the damage had already been done.

This affair is not merely a story of financial corruption. It illustrates how ideological organizations can infiltrate state mechanisms to advance hatred.

Like much of Europe, Sweden is waking up too late to the reality that antisemitism is not a marginal phenomenon. It is sustained by funding, ideology, and the absence of oversight – and when granted institutional support, it becomes a threat to democratic society as a whole.

The Swedish government is now being called upon to take full responsibility: strengthen security, remove extremist influence from public institutions, and ensure that taxpayer funds serve their intended purposes rather than fueling hatred.

The $100 million scandal is more than an oversight failure. It is evidence that even advanced democracies can fall victim to networks of radical incitement. Antisemitism in Sweden reached new heights because it was allowed to grow unchecked for years – and once it received public funding, it became a tangible threat.

In a country that fails to protect its Jewish community, it is not only Jews who suffer-the entire democratic order is at risk.

Across North American campuses, Jewish students are facing levels of hostility that would have seemed unimaginable just a few years ago. Zionist students report being ostracized, harassed, and even threatened. Traditional Jewish perspectives are often met with ridicule or dismissal. Meanwhile, the very institutions designed to support Jewish student life are struggling to respond with coherence and conviction.

Over Shabbat I read a sobering story from Commentary about how Hillel - the international Jewish campus organization - has lost its way. In its eagerness to accommodate progressive Jews, Hillel has lost its Jewish soul. The article noted that some Hillel directors couldn't even take a side in the Israel/Hamas war.

Many Hillels have tried to accommodate this difficult climate by adopting a lowest-common-denominator approach. In their efforts to include all kinds of Jewish students - religious and secular, Zionist and anti-Zionist - they have often diluted the substance of what it means to be Jewish. The result is a vague, feel-good version of Judaism that emphasizes cultural identity and social justice but lacks a clear ethical and philosophical foundation. This leaves students spiritually unmoored and intellectually defenseless.

But there is a powerful, underutilized resource that can help: Jewish ethics. The framework I have been developing, Derechology, offers Jewish students and educators tools to clarify their values, articulate their positions, and stand strong in the face of ideological confusion and pressure no matter what their level of religiosity. It replaces partisanship and politics with something Judaism knows something about - morality.

What Hillel lacks today is not good intentions, but a coherent derech - a well defined path and trajectory. Derechology is not a new denomination, ideology, or partisan stance. It is a value-centered philosophy grounded in Jewish tradition, capable of providing moral clarity while honoring pluralism. It offers a Jewish framework that is both unapologetically particular and universally resonant - something that Jews can be proud of and others can respect.

Derechology answers the core problem facing Hillel today: How do you unite a diverse Jewish student body without reducing Judaism to an empty shell? The answer is to offer something substantial, something undeniably Jewish, but flexible enough to speak to different types of Jews. Derechology is that something.

What Derechology Offers

Rooted in halachic principles, moral philosophy, and the lived tradition of Jewish civilization, Derechology equips students to:

Recognize the difference between free speech and hate speech disguised as "just another opinion."
Defend Zionism not merely as a political stance but as a deeply Jewish moral derech.
Engage with opponents without losing sight of their own ethical trajectory.
Navigate progressive spaces without sacrificing Jewish values on the altar of ideological trendiness.

A Concrete Example: Hosting an IDF Soldier

Imagine a campus Hillel invites an Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) soldier to speak - not a political figure, but someone who served in Gaza and is prepared to give a firsthand account of their experience. The soldier intends to explain how the IDF navigates morally complex combat situations, including rules of engagement, efforts to avoid civilian casualties, and the emotional toll on soldiers themselves.

Predictably, protests erupt. Flyers label the event “Zionist propaganda.” Progressive groups call for boycotts. Some Jewish students feel uncomfortable - not because they disagree with the speaker, but because they fear being associated with controversy. Hillel is caught between wanting to support the speaker and the students, and wanting to avoid a public relations storm.

Derechology equips students and staff to approach this situation with confidence and principle. Instead of caving to external pressure or reacting defensively, they can ask:

Is the act of bearing moral witness to one’s experience in war a Jewish value?
What does Jewish ethics say about truth-telling, responsibility, and moral nuance in the fog of war?
How can we uphold free speech while protecting Jewish dignity and safety?

With those questions guiding them, Hillel could frame the event clearly: not as political advocacy, but as moral testimony. They could prepare students with derech-based tools to understand, engage, and defend the speaker’s right to share their experience. They could also prepare respectful, values-rooted responses to critics, including anti-Zionist Jewish critics, distinguishing between disagreement and demonization. And they can expel those who disrupt the talk and violate Hillel's moral code without apology.

This approach doesn’t just preserve the event. It models moral courage and leadership.

Derech, Not Dogma

Derechology is not about rigid orthodoxy. It's a values-based method that respects diversity within the Jewish community. Whether a student is frum or secular, politically right or left, Derechology helps them ask: What is the moral arc of this tradition? What are its highest priorities in a time of danger, confusion, and change?

It also provides vital tools for distinguishing between authentic Jewish ethics and modern ideological overlays. When everything is framed as social justice, Jewish ethics can be diluted into whatever is culturally dominant. Derechology restores specificity, purpose, and strategic clarity.

The founder of Hillel, Rabbi Benjamin Frankel, believed that affiliation with Hillel meant declaring "I am a Jew," and earning respect on campus through moral strength and Jewish learning. Today, Hillel can rediscover that mission - not by reacting defensively, but by proactively teaching the moral substance of Jewish civilization.

Introducing Derechology into campus programming - through classes, dialogues, fellowships, and staff training - can restore Hillel’s credibility and empower students. It offers a path toward non-partisan, principled Jewish leadership. It helps students stop apologizing for being Jewish and start leading from Jewish values.

Jewish students deserve more than safety. They deserve strength, clarity, and confidence. Chabad does this from a religious perspective, but some want a different approach. By teaching the structured ethical vision of Derechology, Hillel and other campus institutions can meet today’s threats not with fear, but with derech.

Because if we are not for ourselves, who will be?

_______________________________________

(I'm still writing my Derechology book. Let me know if you want to know more about it. Meanwhile, my blog posts about Derechology can be seen here. )

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

12/05 Links Pt2: Boycotting Fun to Own the Jews; The boycott of Eurovision exposes the racism of the Israel-bashers; Why Hamas Sympathizers Love Ms. Rachel

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: Boycotting Fun to Own the Jews

Which brings us back to the ridiculous meetings that took place yesterday among European broadcasters. The gathering voted to adopt a set of contest reforms rather than ban Israel from participation. It’s darkly funny that some of the reforms were aimed at quieting resentment toward Israel for its success—last year, Yuval Raphael finished second overall and won the public vote, leading to protests that the Jews somehow must have cheated. But it mollified enough of the Europeans that Eurovision avoided the nightmare scenario it most feared: having to ban Israel while Austria was hosting the competition.

Still, several countries have announced they will boycott the contest rather than share a stage with the Jewish state: Spain, the Netherlands, Ireland and Slovenia. Perhaps more will join them.

How should we judge the countries who stomped out of Eurovision over Israel’s participation? Harshly. A singing competition is not a diplomatic convention. Would you leave a karaoke bar because there was an Israeli Jew there? Will these folks boycott all establishments that serve Israeli Jews?

Aside from emitting a faint segregationist stink, these Europeans are politicizing every cell in their bodies in an attempt to enforce those same artistic limits on everyone else. If rare apolitical music gatherings are impossible, it has a stunting effect on the industry and on the minds and temperaments of the people participating in their own dumbing down.

And the soccer snobs are also—you just know it—coming for the Olympics at some point. Unhealthy people trying to make the planet an unhealthy world through a totalitarian-political mindset. I’d tell them to get a hobby, but they’d just ruin that too.

Andrew Pessin: Onward, ho!

Meteorological Discourse: How Language Erases Jewish Agency and Conceals Antizionist Actors

When Jews freeze under the antizionist gaze, they begin using a vocabulary of atmosphere rather than agency. Instead of identifying who is targeting Jews and why, they often describe anti-Jewish hate as though it were weather. We hear phrases like:
“It’s getting bad”
“Antisemitism is rising”
“This campus is terrifying.”

These are weather reports, not analyses. They lack actors, motives, structures, ideologies, and systems. And this linguistic pattern continues even in descriptions of violence. In an eerie way, events happen to Jews, yet no one causes them:
“Israeli women were raped”
“Nasrallah was lionized”
“A Jew was beaten in Montreal”
“Jewish businesses were vandalized”
“Jewish students were harassed”
“Sarah Milgrim was shot”

Such formulations render the harm without rendering the perpetrator. They mimic the structure of meteorological statements (“It rained,” “The streets flooded”) in which no actor exists and no intention is named. Violence becomes a condition rather than an action; Jews become a medium through which harm moves, not subjects whose safety is violated by identifiable agents.

Contrast this with what Jews should say—language that restores agency to those who commit, legitimize, or amplify anti-Jewish harm:
“Antizionists raped Israeli women”
“The New York Times lionized Nasrallah”
“Antizionists beat a Jew in Montreal”
“Antizionists vandalized Jewish businesses”
“Antizionists harassed Jewish students”
“Elias Rodriguez shot Sarah Milgrim”

This linguistic shift restores agency to the actors who commit, legitimize, or amplify anti-Jewish harm. It makes the ideology and its adherents visible. It generates accountability. And crucially, it reorients the public gaze away from Jewish victims and toward the structures targeting Jews.

'Antizionism Is a Hate Movement': A Conversation with Adam Louis-Klein

Something happened while I was writing a book about how to fight antisemitism. Forget internal arguments over hyphens or whether to call it “Jew-hate.” A new consensus is beginning to form around using the word “antizionism” instead. I always thought that, whatever you call it, this form of bigotry adapts to the times and, like a parasite, hitches a ride on whatever version of anti-Jewish hatred is socially acceptable. I’m beginning to understand that antizionism is different. It gives antisemites plausible deniability for their hatred, and we need a new set of tools to fight it.

At the forefront of this effort is anthropologist Adam Louis-Klein, who has led a push on social media to change the way we think about antizionism and to name it as a hate movement. He launched an organization, the Movement Against Antizionism to advocate for this shift.

I had many questions, so I interviewed Adam last month. I thought it best to let him speak for himself, so here is a lightly edited transcript of our conversation.

12/05 Links Pt1: How time ran out on Blinken’s plan for postwar Gaza; Hostages as leverage: Iran's secret demand aimed at crippling Israel's agriculture; Did the Red Cross do all it could for hostages in Gaza?

From Ian:

The day after that never came: How time ran out on Blinken’s plan for postwar Gaza

Had the world not been turned upside down, Antony Blinken would have been in Israel on October 10, 2023. Had Hamas terrorists not shaken the Middle East and pulverized plans for its future, the US secretary of state would have flown from Israel to Saudi Arabia a few days later as part of a multi-stop tour aimed at bridging some of the final gaps between the two countries on long-elusive normalization, a deal that could have been as positively transformative as the Hamas massacre and ensuing war were devastatingly destructive.

For months ahead of the scheduled trip, the US had been hard at work crafting a document with Saudi Arabia, laying out what Israel would need to do in exchange for Riyadh joining the Abraham Accords, namely a series of relatively minor concessions meant to assuage Palestinian aspirations for statehood. Blinken planned to bring that document to Jerusalem for approval, two senior Biden officials told The Times of Israel.

Israel was aware of where things stood and was comfortable enough with the modest steps discussed by Washington and Riyadh for the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem to draft a normalization agreement with Saudi Arabia, according to the two former US officials and a current Israeli official.

Blinken did end up making it to Israel that week, but under very different circumstances, as then-US president Joe Biden’s administration rallied to support the Jewish state following the Hamas-led cross-border attack on October 7 that cut down some 1,200 people and saw 251 more taken hostage into Gaza.

Documents uncovered by the IDF from Gaza during the war revealed that one of the motivations of Hamas’s leaders in launching the attack was scuttling the US effort to broker that brewing normalization deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

To a great extent, the terror group succeeded. The Biden administration’s normalization push was shelved in favor of, first, providing Israel with the military and diplomatic support needed to restore deterrence against Iran and its proxies, and second, working to secure an end to the war through a hostage release deal. Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (L) meets with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Jeddah on June 7, 2023. (Amer Hilabi/Pool/AFP)

Many leading figures in the administration saw freeing the abductees as the key to ending the war and accordingly concentrated their attention on the indirect hostage negotiations between Israel and Hamas, which largely ran through Qatar and Egypt. But Blinken grew to believe that setting up the security and governing bodies to help administer Gaza the “day after” the war was no less critical.

“Israel needed the confidence to know that [its] security would not be threatened by withdrawing from Gaza, and Hamas needed the confidence to know that the war would end if it gave up the remaining hostages,” said a senior Biden aide, who was one of 10 government officials and well-placed regional sources interviewed for this story.

That logic was the basis for a “Transitional Mission” that Blinken worked to establish, which would steer the Strip after the war. The initiative, as laid out in a 14-point plan that would have been part of the ceasefire agreement, was aimed at “support[ing] the provision of governance, security and humanitarian assistance for Gaza” after the war, according to a never-before-reported US government document outlining the plan, which was obtained and verified by The Times of Israel.

The proposed mission was to involve civilian and military personnel, funding and other contributions from a handful of foreign governments, including Saudi Arabia, whose involvement Blinken hoped would provide an opening to revive the stalled normalization negotiations. Displaced Palestinians stand on a road after heavy rain in Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip, on November 25, 2025. (Omar Al-Qattaa / AFP)

To ensure strong Arab support, the proposal characterized the initiative as a “first step toward establishing an independent and sovereign Palestinian state.” That made the idea a hard sell to Jerusalem, but Blinken believed the prospect of Saudi normalization could be enough of a carrot to overcome Israel’s likely objections.

The result was a precarious house of cards, but one that Blinken thought could lay the foundation for not just a temporary halt in hostilities, but a durable, lasting peace and a truly transformed region.

The US held months of talks to advance the plan and Saudi normalization, but neither got off the ground by the time Biden left office in January 2025. A ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was brokered during the waning hours of the previous administration, helped by critical pressure from the incoming Trump team. But Israel still wasn’t interested in discussing postwar arrangements of the kind Blinken sought to finalize, and the Trump administration backed Jerusalem’s decision to resume the war in March.

Hostages as leverage: Iran's secret demand aimed at crippling Israel's agriculture - exclusive

Iran offered Thailand help in securing the release of Thai hostages held in Hamas captivity on the condition that Bangkok label Israel an “unsafe country” and instruct its tens of thousands of agricultural workers working there to leave immediately, two sources familiar with the matter told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday.

The Iranian message was clear: help us apply economic pressure on Israel, and we’ll help you bring your people home.

In the tense and chaotic weeks following the October 7 attacks, while Israel was still counting its dead and searching for missing civilians, a drama was unfolding thousands of kilometers away in Bangkok.

Thailand’s government, shocked by the scale of the massacre in which 39 Thai citizens were murdered and desperate to protect its citizens, began urgent diplomatic efforts to secure the release of the 31 Thai laborers abducted by Hamas and other terrorist groups.

It was a humanitarian crisis, not a political one; Thailand had no direct conflict with Hamas. But as often happens in the Middle East, even humanitarian crises can become bargaining chips.

Tehran, which maintained influence over Hamas, signaled it might be able to facilitate the release of the Thai hostages; however, the offer was not unconditional. Possible damage to Israel's agriculture sector If Thailand complied, it would deliver a painful blow to Israel’s agricultural sector at the very moment it was struggling to recover from the shock of the attack.

Between 30,000 and 40,000 Thai laborers worked on Israeli farms and in greenhouses – some of them in the western Negev and near the border with Gaza, the area hardest hit on October 7.

Their sudden withdrawal would have crippled Israeli food production and inflicted long-term economic damage.

Joshua Namm: Et Tu America? For Israel, No Ally Is Forever

There has been a lot of serious discussion recently about America’s role in the recent agreement between Israel and Hamas. And while I wrote about that topic last month, this month contains my favorite holiday of the year: Chanukah. I wrote about the incredible importance of that holiday two years ago. This year, those two things are connected.

What’s the connection?

As Chanukah approaches there are two, seemingly different, but related reasons that “make this year different than all other years” (sorry about mixing two Jewish ideas in that way).

According to a story in the Jerusalem Post, the United States, obviously under Donald Trump, is planning to build a large military base in Israel along the Gaza border. The aim is purportedly to aid “stabilization efforts” in Gaza during the current conflict, and (more tellingly) to “serve future international stabilization efforts.”

At the same time, the acceptance of Trump’s plan, and the various ways the U.S. has been involved in shaping Israel’s policy during this war, under Biden and Trump, demonstrates an expansion of America’s influence on Israel, representing an increasing Israeli willingness to relinquish sovereignty – in much the same way it has given up land for a phantom “peace,” for decades.

That isn’t as threatening if we’re talking about the U.S./Israel relationship as it has existed for most of the last 50 years. But Israeli/American relations haven’t always been this friendly, and there is no reason, especially given the events of the last two years, to believe that they will remain so in the future.

It is no longer entirely in the realm of fantasy to believe that at some point America could be a significant opponent to Israel’s interests (and to wider Jewish interests). When I was growing up, I assumed that any conflict in which Israel and America found themselves on different sides, would be an America so different than the one I grew up in, that it would be unrecognizable as America. I also assumed this to be an almost entirely theoretical question, one which, if it did occur, could occur only after many, many generations.

That was naively idealistic.

Again, we aren’t there yet, but now we can easily see how things could get there. The rise of the antisemitic left (most recently embodied in the elections of not one, but two Jew hating socialist mayors in New York AND Seattle, with a newly declared socialist mayoral candidate in Los Angeles announcing on November 15), and the rise of the antisemitic right, embodied in the Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Thomas Massie, etc., is a wake up call that every Jew should heed.

Times of Israel reports:

American Jewish organizations on Monday slammed a recent report by the National Communication Association’s Task Force on Academic Freedom and Tenure in which Israel is portrayed as a “settler-colonial state” engaged in “genocidal violence,” saying the report peddles “antisemitic conspiracy theories.”

In a joint statement, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), American Jewish Committee (AJC) and Academic Engagement Network (AEN) called the suggestion in the academic organization’s report that ‘Zionists’ are engaging alongside white supremacists in efforts to undermine academic freedom “outrageous.”

The report indeed includes antisemitic tropes, positioning pro-Israel voices as rich and powerful opponents of academic freedom:

The Zionist attack on academic freedom takes the form of powerful donors, trustees, and politicians exerting influence on universities to surveil, target, and discipline academics for their research, teaching, and public scholarship on the settler colonial violence in Palestine carried out by Israel.

But as bad as that is, the entire report shows more antipathy to Western civilization than to Israel itself. It engages in logical fallacies, culminating in a report on academic freedom that is against academic freedom itself.

The report is filled with insane statements like this one:

The birth of communication studies in the context of World War II propaganda and the subsequent emergence of the Cold War agenda translates into the hegemonic formations of knowledge within the discipline. These hegemonic formations rooted in the expansive goals of empire reproduce globally the standards of whiteness...

So because a field started in the context of a (supremely moral) war largely fought by white people, the field itself is irredeemably compromised by "whiteness"? If that is true, then the NCA itself must immediately dissolve because it was founded by seventeen white men in 1914.

The report itself changes the definition of academic freedom to be only the freedom to teach a narrow ideological agenda - decolonial, anti-capitalist, anti-Israel. Their proposals include “Disrupt the Whiteness of Tenure,”, “Design frameworks for celebrating practices of transgression”, “Decolonize the hegemonic structures of tenure and promotion”, and “Create research funds for CRT, Palestine, and decolonization.” This isn't academic freedom; it is promoting a single ideology and demoting any other.

The report says "Decolonizing the definition of academic freedom is fundamental… redefining what counts as knowledge." So it acknowledges that it is creating its own, narrow, political definition of academic freedom that excludes other viewpoints - an oxymoron.

The report proposes to force tenure systems to value “transgressive” scholarship, prioritize activist research, and anchor tenure criteria in indigenous and decolonial epistemologies. The entire purpose of tenure is to protect scholars from ideological interference, but this proposal makes ideological conformity a requirement for tenure, which is the opposite of academic freedom.

Even worse, even though academia is overwhelmingly aligned with progressive and left-wing ideologies, the NCA report consistently characterizes any minority viewpoints as “white supremacist,” “far‑right,” “colonial,” “racist,” or “imperialist.” This is a blatant attempt to impose a single viewpoint on all of academia and to denounce any others. It is profoundly anti-knowledge.

Yes, the report promotes antisemitic stereotypes and should be condemned just for that. But the entire report's framework shows exactly what is wrong with academia today: the rejection of any opinion not aligned with the decolonial, progressive, Marxist ideologies with insults , labeling any other opinions as "white supremacist" and "racist."

Based on this report, which the larger NCA Executive Committee approved and praised, the National Communications Association is itself bigoted, closeminded, hypocritical and anti-knowledge. It has proven itself to a model for exactly what an academic association should not be.

(h/t Adam L)

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

The Accuser's Trilemma: A Simple Test that Destroys the Genocide Libel - and Others

There is a way of proving - I mean logically, bulletproof proving - that Israel was not committing genocide in Gaza. And as I came up with that, I realized that the same method can also be used to either debunk or support most similar accusations of systemic, large scale crimes.

I've written before about the falsifiability audit I've developed for my Derechology philosophy framework. Briefly, it says that if a load-bearing assumption of an argument is false, then the entire argument is false. The assumption can be explicit or, more often, implicit. Identifying those hidden assumptions is not always easy, but to test if it is load bearing is not too hard: if an assumption is taken away, does the entire argument fall apart? If so, it is load bearing.

Recently, I turned this audit toward the "genocide" libel against Israel - and discovered something more powerful than I expected: a simple three-part test that doesn't just debunk the genocide accusation, but provides a universal method for distinguishing real systemic crimes from activist fabrications.

I was thinking about the load-bearing assumptions behind the genocide libel. So have others. The major one they (and I) have concentrated on was that genocide requires intent, and the proofs of intent shown by Amnesty, the UN and South Africa's ICJ filing are all out of context, falsely framed and/or do not represent Israeli policy. But they then go down other legal issues, like using an ICJ minority opinion as legal jurisprudence. It is a lot of smoke and mirrors all meant to arrive at their pre-determined conclusion. But a causal observer cannot weigh the quality of the arguments, and figures out that "the truth must be in between" - which still damns Israel.

But I then realized that there was a deeply implicit load-bearing assumption, a set of prerequisites that are absolutely indispensable for Israel to be committing that crime.

For Israel to be committing genocide in Gaza, at least one of the following three things must be true. There is no fourth option.

1. Israel's military protocols themselves are illegal

The IDF's Rules of Engagement, its legal review system (the MAG Corps), its procedures for target approval, civilian warnings, proportionality assessments - these protocols themselves violate international humanitarian law. They are designed to enable or require genocidal actions.

2. Israel secretly suspended its legal protocols for this war

Despite having documented procedures that comply with international law, Israel issued hidden directives suspending or bypassing these protections specifically for the Gaza conflict. There exists a covert policy - memos, orders, command decisions - that tells the IDF to ignore its own legal framework. Essentially, the IDF has two sets of ethical books, one it shows the world and one that it actually uses against Palestinians.

3. Israel's protocols are routinely violated and those violations are systematically tolerated

Even though proper procedures exist on paper, soldiers and commanders regularly and blatantly ignore them in practice, and military leadership knowingly tolerates these violations. There is a pattern of strikes contradicting legal approvals, ignored warnings from legal officers, and no disciplinary action despite known abuses.

That's it. Those are the only three possibilities. There is no fourth branch. No loophole. No 'but what about...' that escapes this framework. I've consulted multiple AI systems and legal frameworks, and no one can identify any other logical possibility.

For the IDF to commit genocide as an army, one of these must be true. I'm not saying there couldn't be individual war crimes, or excessive force, or inadequate controls to stop tragic mistakes, but for the specific charge of genocide, if these are all false, then the charge is false.

Nothing else matters. No matter how much evidence the NGOs bring to show the number of deaths, the scale of destruction, the suffering of civilians, supposedly inflammatory statements by individual officials, the displacement of populations, limits to aid, food shortages or other humanitarian crises - none of them could possibly add up to genocide. There must be another explanation that fits the facts better.

Because for genocide to occur, the system itself must be designed for elimination of a people.

Did Amnesty (or the UN or South Africa) prove, or even hint, at any of those three statements being true in their lengthy reports?

Branch 1 (Illegal protocols): No. The IDF's Rules of Engagement are documented and publicly available. They require distinction between civilians and combatants, proportionality assessments, legal review of targets, warnings where feasible. These procedures align with international humanitarian law.

Branch 2 (Secret suspension): No. Amnesty provides zero evidence of any directive, memo, or order suspending legal protections. To claim this without evidence borders on conspiracy theory - you're asserting that a massive covert operation exists but somehow left no documentary trace and every member of the IDF is in on the scam - religious, secular, Druze. Yet there is not one whistle blower.

Branch 3 (Systematic tolerance): No. While individual incidents are under investigation and some officers have been dismissed, there is no evidence of command-level tolerance for violations. The existence of investigations and disciplinary actions directly contradicts the claim of systemic impunity. There have been violations, but not a system-wide breakdown of order in the IDF. The whistle-blowers who occasionally surface in Haaretz are the exceptions to prove the rule - they might discuss what happened in their unit but no one says that mass murder was acceptable to the army.

Amnesty proved none of the three. Yet they concluded genocide anyway.

As Sherlock Holmes might say, when one eliminates the impossible, whatever is remaining, no matter how improbable to Israel-haters, must be true. There must be an alternative explanation for the damage and death. And Israel has provided one: they are fighting an enemy that deliberately operates from civilian areas, using human shields, storing weapons in homes and mosques, launching attacks from schools and hospitals. In fact, Israel's explanation fits the facts better. It is entirely consistent with:

High civilian casualties in dense urban combat
Multiple displacements as the battlefield shifts
Warnings before airstrikes
Evacuations of civilians before heavy military action (ironically, Amnesty frames this life-saving decision as evidence of genocide)
Investigations of alleged violations
The IDF admitting mistakes when they occur
Stated military objectives focused on Hamas
Allowing in tens of thousands of tons of aid and coordinating with the aid agencies (besides UNRWA)

Without proving one of the three systemic conditions, the most logical explanation is the one Israel provides, not the one Amnesty asserts. And Amnesty's explanations of the facts that don't fit what a genocidal state would do veers into conspiracy theory territory. They position their analysis as fact-based but the counter-evidence that Amnesty explains away shows that it is unfalsifiable.

Instead, Amnesty wrote a report filled with 280 pages of evidence about outcomes - deaths, destruction, suffering - presented as if the structural prerequisites don't need to be established. They never identify which of the three branches they're claiming, never provide the necessary structural proof, and apparently hope readers will assume "all this death must mean one of them is true."

That's not how logic works. That's not how law works. And it's certainly not how ethical accusation works.

______________________

What I've stumbled upon here isn't just a defense of Israel - it's a universal diagnostic for separating real systemic evil from activist-driven lies.

The same three-branch test applies to any accusation of systemic human rights violations by a nation, military, or large organization. Let’s call this The Accuser’s Trilemma: A three-branch test for any claim of systemic evil. Either the system (1) mandates harm, (2) covertly suspends legality, or (3) tolerates violations. If not, the accusation is structurally false.

Let me show you how:

The Holodomor (Soviet Ukraine, 1932-33): PASSES

Branch 1 proven: Explicit orders existed to confiscate grain from Ukrainian regions, designed to cause mass starvation of a national group. The protocol itself was eliminationist.

Apartheid South Africa: PASSES

Branch 1 proven: Laws explicitly mandated racial classification and segregation. The legal framework itself institutionalized racial hierarchy.

Catholic Church child abuse (1980s-2000s): PASSES

Branch 3 proven: Internal documents show bishops knowingly relocated known abusers rather than reporting them. Pattern of tolerance across multiple dioceses.

Armenian massacre (1915-1917): ALMOST CERTAINLY PASSES

Branch 1 - Some indications, a lot of documents destroyed, but not proven
Branch 2 - Strong circumstantial evidence; diplomats and survivors described systematic killings; but full documentation missing.
Branch 3 - Strongest case: Massive deportations into known death zones (e.g., Syrian desert); evidence of indifference or complicity

Israeli apartheid within the Green Line: FAILS

No branches proven or indicated. Israeli law (with slight exceptions like the Law of Return) does not distinguish between Arab and Jewish citizens and there is no indication of systemic violation of written laws. Israel does have an independent judicial branch, after all.

This test does not prove there are no individual violations, or discrimination doesn't exist, or Israel is perfect. But it does show that the accusations against Israel as a government, or as an army, simply cannot be true. Systemic accusations - claims that the structure itself is evil - require systemic proof. You must show that the protocol mandates harm, or was secretly bypassed, or is systematically unenforced.

The test is simple. The logic is airtight. And the implications are devastating for those who traffic in false accusations of systemic evil.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

12/04 Links Pt2: Israel WILL participate in Eurovision 2026 – Netherlands, Spain and Ireland to boycott; I Want a Democratic Party that Believes Jewish Lives Matter; What the Celebrity Crusade for Barghouti Says about Our "Elites"

From Ian:

Prof. Gerald Steinberg and Anne Herzberg: UK Funding for Hamas-Linked Groups

Since 2007, Hamas has amassed power and resources in no small part by diverting international aid and developing an unprecedented terror infrastructure. Billions of dollars in Western taxpayer funding were funneled into Gaza ostensibly for humanitarian projects via 13 UN agencies and dozens of NGOs.

Internal British and Hamas documents reveal multiple ways in which London was aware of Hamas involvement in its aid pipeline, and in some instances even cooperated with that organization. In May 2025, NGO Monitor published a detailed report, using information and documents obtained through Freedom of Information proceedings, which demonstrated that UK Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) officials were fully aware of Hamas involvement in certain Gaza cash assistance programs they funded. As of mid-2025, UK and UN databases revealed that this support was still ongoing.

These programs were implemented through UNICEF in coordination with Gaza's Hamas-controlled Ministry of Social Development, which was responsible for providing the lists of aid beneficiaries for cash assistance. Hamas was able to determine just who would receive British taxpayer funds, and NGOs linked to other terrorist groups (such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine) would be among those recipients.

In addition, the evidence indicates that Hamas skims exorbitant sums from cash transfers in Gaza. According to Eyal Ofer, an expert on Gaza's economy, "People are getting aid via banking apps, but to turn that into real currency, they must go through brokers. They withdraw funds from these digital wallets and charge outrageous fees - anywhere between 20% and 40%. This is one of the ways Hamas is making a profit."

The events of Oct. 7 and the regional war it precipitated were made possible in large part due to the diversion of billions of dollars in aid by Hamas and its pressure campaign on UN agencies, international NGOs, and foreign diplomats to facilitate the terror organization's activity and control.

The detailed record discussed here demonstrates complicity, if not close cooperation, between the UK FCDO, officials of the NGOs that receive millions in taxpayer funds, and Hamas. It also shows how the humanitarian aid industry knowingly operates outside of and in contradiction to the legal conditions and requirements established by the British Parliament. In November 2021, London fully proscribed Hamas as a terror organization. Funding or supporting it is a crime.

The glaring absence of oversight and due diligence in British funding enabled the potential transfer of millions of pounds to Hamas terror infrastructure and personnel under the guise of humanitarian aid. When presented with concrete evidence, British government officials have thus far chosen to deflect and deny rather than reform the way in which aid pipelines operate, to ensure they help Gazans, not Hamas.

I Want a Democratic Party that Believes Jewish Lives Matter

I was an intern in the Clinton White House. I went on to work in senior positions for the campaigns of Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy, and for President Joe Biden's Super PAC. I helped elect Democrats up and down the ballot, staunchly defending them in public and in private. I attended almost every Democratic National Convention, as a professional and as part of a community of friends who were my political family. In 2020 I proudly served as a delegate for Joe Biden.

For decades I championed women's rights, reproductive choice, civil rights and equality. As a Jew, I was especially drawn to the teachings of Martin Luther King Jr., for whom Zionism - the Jewish longing for self-determination - was inseparable from the universal struggle for human rights. That was the Democratic Party I believed in.

Then came Oct. 7, 2023, and the massacre of Israelis and Jewish Americans. It forced me to confront the reality that members of my own party responded not with grief or solidarity with the victims but with protests that framed the attack as "resistance." It horrified me. There was no denying that under the banner of a "big tent," Democratic leaders were making room to shelter and legitimize extremism. Voices once on the margin suddenly dominated the narrative.

Then came the breaking point. The term "genocide" - reserved for the worst crimes in human history, like the Holocaust - was weaponized as a political slogan and hurled at Israel and Jews with ease. It was suddenly applied to a nation defending itself after an actual genocidal terrorist organization slaughtered families in their beds and hunted down and killed teenagers at a music festival.

Genocide is a ruse, a malicious inversion of reality. Yet few Democrats pushed back. Many embraced it. In November, 20 Democratic lawmakers introduced a measure in the House accusing Israel of genocide. The North Carolina Democratic Party and the Young Democrats of America adopted official positions accusing Israel of genocide. What we're seeing among Democrats is a broad, networked, antisemitic movement with cultural power and political influence.

The Democratic Party has allowed and lately encouraged the normalization of rhetoric that dehumanizes Jews and distorts history. It has become acceptable to be an antisemite who hates Israel. I cannot be affiliated with a party that espouses that message. Democratic leaders must speak clearly: Terrorism is terrorism, Jewish lives matter, moral consistency matters. Only after my community's safety is secure, and the party recognizes it not as a favor but as a fundamental principle, will I consider coming home.

The non-Jewish Israel supporters who have lost friends over Gaza

GEOFF Baker was always rather proud that his dad helped fight against the fascists targeting Jews in the East End of London in the 1930s.

As a journalist, and then PR to Paul McCartney, he also had many Jewish friends. One of his abiding memories of post-Holocaust trauma was when the former Beatle discovered a German venue he was playing in had been a favourite of Hitler: Geoff witnessed the deep discomfort of Paul’s Jewish wife Linda.

And so when October 7 happened, he wrote of his shock on Facebook and put a “I stand with Israel” banner around his photograph.

Two of his friends in particular took objection to this. The online rows became ever more bitter. “I’d write about my horror after reading an article about a woman who was decapitated by Hamas after she tried to fight off being raped and they would be saying things like ‘What about 1948?’ or ‘Did you see what the settlers have done?’” says Geoff, 69. “And I’d argue, ‘If you don’t want Hiroshima, don’t do Pearl Harbor.’

“This went on for weeks, all the rows were happening on my Facebook page. I realised I was inadvertently giving a platform to their views. So I blocked them and we no longer speak. One of them had been my friend since we were at school. I look around and I fear this new normal where it has become acceptable to be antisemitic and I don’t understand why no one is doing anything about it.”

Geoff, an old friend, was one of scores of people to get in touch with me after I put a call out on Facebook asking if any non-Jews had fallen out with friends over the Israel-Hamas conflict. I’d seen it reported in a More in Common poll that around four out of every ten Brits who were either firmly pro-Israel or pro-Palestine would consider dropping a friendship because of the war.

While I barely know a Jew who hasn’t fallen out with at least one person over the war, I was curious about how this issue had become so toxic for people who had no skin in the game – as it were – that they would fall out with friends. This is a conflict that is 2,000 miles away but its impact on our lives, our politics, has taken on a life of its own.

My post attracted 350 comments and was shared dozens of times. The comments read like a confession of pain. Person after person described how they had fallen out with friends, siblings, children and how sometimes the damage might be irreparable.

The direct messages also came in from people too frightened to say how they were feeling publicly. For many, the pain is abiding, yet they are also terrified about being further cancelled in this world of binaries.

In some ways, the messages were a balm: it has felt lonely being a Jew in this increasingly hostile atmosphere. These are people, strangers, who have our backs and have paid the price for their conviction in the most awful of ways. Sometimes that conviction has even involved them arguing with anti-Zionist Jews.

But also, they exposed me to a world of antisemitism that lingers beneath the surface – the way that non-Jews talk to each other when Jews aren’t in the room.

Let’s start with the left.

12/04 Links Pt1: Why Trump's Gaza Plan is Not a Peace Deal; Trump to announce transition to Phase II of Gaza deal, 'Board of Peace' by Christmas; The World Will Not Help Israel with Hamas;

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: No, Americans Don’t Really Think Israel Is Guilty of Genocide

The key here is that genocide requires intent to destroy not just civilians but the specific population, and to judge something as genocidal requires one to determine that genocide is “the only inference that could reasonably be drawn from the acts in question.”

This is part of why the claim that Israel committed genocide was so unserious: Definitionally, a genocide did not take place. There are plenty of other words that can be used to describe the war, but “genocide” has been indisputably ruled out unless one changes the definition of the word, as some NGOs tried to do. But again, that would also be an admission that Israel was innocent of the charge.

Israel’s civilian-to-combatant fatality rate was unprecedentedly low for urban warfare, and the intent issue becomes absurd when you remember that Israel sent its military into Gaza to rescue hostages that Hamas refused to return.

But back to the poll. Even the response that Israel intentionally harms civilians doesn’t necessarily meet the definition of genocide. So if about 8 in 10 don’t think Israel is intentionally harming civilians, it’s likely that about 9 out of 10 don’t think Israel committed genocide.

That doesn’t mean there aren’t warning signs for Israel and its supporters, even in the IGC poll. Just because respondents don’t believe Israel committed genocide doesn’t mean they approve of Israel’s actions. As one can see, the poll shows plenty of criticism of Israel’s prosecution of the war.

Moreover, in the IGC poll—as in virtually every such survey—the trend is clear: Younger Americans of either party are tougher on Israel than their elders. But there is still a wide partisan gap: The farther left one goes on the spectrum, the more likely are respondents to assume ill intent on Israel’s part.

Another notable aspect of the poll is that there is a ton of uncertainty among respondents, so presumably a fair number are persuadable in one direction or another. Uncertainty regarding Israel’s intent is incompatible with a finding of genocide.

Two lessons. One, by definition the people who accuse Israel of genocide are feigning a certainty they almost surely don’t or can’t possess, at least from afar and during the war. As a rule, beware such people, especially when they are rewarded professionally for their dishonesty.

Two, anti-Israel activists have killed the concept of genocide. They have turned it into just another descriptive term meaning one side lost the war badly. There will continue to be victims of actual genocide in the world, and they will all be harmed by the “genocide” fraud perpetrated by professional anti-Zionists.

Khaled Abu Toameh: Why Trump's Gaza Plan is Not a Peace Deal

In the eyes of Hamas and other Palestinian terror groups, the plan is nothing but another temporary ceasefire, not different than previous ones reached between Israel and Hamas over the past two decades.

Those who think that Hamas, by agreeing to Trump's "peace plan," has abandoned its desire to eliminate Israel or has softened its position toward Israel are unfortunately dead wrong.

Hamas leaders have stressed their opposition to the involvement of any non-Palestinians in the future administration of the Gaza Strip.

Hamas has also made it clear that the role of any international troops should be limited to monitoring the ceasefire and safeguarding the borders of the Gaza Strip, not to disarming the terror groups and their military infrastructure.

Hamas's remarks are a not-so-veiled threat that they intend to launch terrorist attacks against members of any international force that tries to disarm the terror groups in the Gaza Strip.

That is doubtless the major reason most Arabs and Muslims appear reluctant to dispatch soldiers to the Gaza Strip: they do not want a direct confrontation with Hamas and the other terror groups operating there.

To understand the mindset and intentions of Hamas, it is crucial that one pay attention to what the terror group says in Arabic, not what some of its leaders tell US envoys in meetings behind closed doors.

Regrettably, there can be no peace, security, or stability in the area if Hamas and its allies are left standing on their feet and preparing for more massacres against Israel.

Is Gaza Peace Plan on the Verge of Crumbling?

"Everything is stuck," a senior Israeli defense official told me this week. Because diplomats have failed to capitalize on the disarray of Iran and its allies, "all the fronts in the Middle East are still open," he warned.

Most of Gaza's population is still controlled by Hamas, Lebanon hasn't fully regained its sovereignty from Hizbullah, and Iran is rebuilding its battered military.

The Middle East is still waiting for a stable "day after." Other than the release of all living Israeli hostages from Gaza, most of the goals of Trump's peace plan appear stillborn.

Nations that had volunteered to join the international force have been backing away, and donor countries are refusing to begin reconstruction projects until there's security in Gaza.

Prof. Efraim Inbar: The World Will Not Help Israel with Hamas

Hamas is tightening its grip on the half of Gaza that it controls and rebuilding its military infrastructure. It is difficult to imagine Hamas voluntarily disarming or relinquishing control. Israel must be prepared to "do the dirty work" for the civilized world and finish off what remains of Hamas's evil in Gaza. This is not a boxing match that can be won on points. Israel must win by a knockout.

Israel cannot claim victory while Hamas remains in Gaza. Israel must therefore seek American backing to resume fighting in order to implement the Trump plan. Repeated military defeats have not altered the Palestinians' fundamental opposition to the existence of the Jewish state. There is no "day after" if Hamas remains as an armed presence in Gaza.

Every regime that has a peace agreement with Israel - Egypt, Jordan, the UAE, Bahrain, and Morocco - despises Hamas. All of these states, as well as Saudi Arabia, view the Muslim Brotherhood and its financial patron Qatar as a threat to their regimes and a destabilizing force in the region.

Mass-Incarceration Proponents Tout Data Showing 75% Cut In Crime If All MKs Jailed (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

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Jerusalem, December 4 - Advocates for robust imprisonment policies as a way to reduce unlawful activity pointed today to studies indicating that if Israel locked away all one hundred twenty lawmakers, unlawful behavior would drop by three quarter.

Fans of El Salvador President Nayib-Bukele's implementation of a mass incarceration policy focusing on the small percentage of the population that commits most of his nation's crimes called attention this morning to numbers that demonstrate a promising truth: if all Members of Knesset were imprisoned, crime would drop by just under 75%.

Shmuel Norton, director of the NGO Lock Them Up, addressed reporters outside the Knesset, and presented data from academic studies quantifying the estimated effect of imprisoning all of the parliamentary delegates. "There are six studies from the last four years," he explained. "In each of them, the researchers found that locking up the Members of Knesset will cut crime by no less than sixty-five percent, with the most likely figure closer to eighty percent. Seventy-five percent represents the median figure across the studies."

"The categories of crime that will shrink are not confined to the various types of corruption," he continued, "though of course those are will represented in the data, as you would be correct to expect. But the reduction also includes libel, slander, conspiracy, theft, extortion, and forgery, not to mention immoral activities that do not rise, technically, to the level of 'crime,' such as sexual dalliances by married lawmakers or with married paramours."

Norton added that the figures improve even more if former Members of Knesset are included in the imprisonment, and that the reduction in crime reaches 92% if local government officials are also confined.

The studies also suggested that incarcerating all lawmakers will reduce inflation, since, while in some correctional facility, they will not be able to spend public funds as profligately as is their wont, and will certainly not be able to approve the governmental spending of hundreds of billions of shekels, which accounts for the vast majority of inflation pressure on the economy.

Practical obstacles to the implementation of such a policy will likely prevent its total adoption in the near term, Norton acknowledged, but he expressed the hope that Israel could attempt at least a partial measure. He cited elements of the various studies indicating that even if only the cabinet ministers are locked up and the keys thrown away, crime will wane by forty percent.

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

How a @Guardian writer mainstreamed the "open air prison" meme - in 2000

What is the origin of the phrase "Gaza is an open-air prison"?

The earliest I found the phrase from from a Palestinian terrorist in 1993 quoted in the Los Angeles Times, December 24, 1993, page 1:

Rayad abu Kamar couldn't take his hands off his AK-47 assault rifle. The young Palestinian fighter cocked it and uncocked it. He popped the ammunition clip in and out a dozen or more times. He stroked the barrel as he explained why he chose war in this bitter, desperate land where there are no signs of a promised peace.

"When I got out of jail, my first thought was, 'Hey, I'm free,'" said Kamar, 21, a fugitive rebel with the Fatah Hawks of Gaza, a group linked to the Palestine Liberation Organization and its chairman, Yasser Arafat.

"The feeling didn't last an hour," Kamar said. "When I got home, suddenly I felt no different than before. I felt as if I had traded my small jail cell for a bigger one. That is Gaza. An open-air prison for nearly 1 million of us Palestinians. So, I decided to fight. And this is the only way I know."

Yes, even in 1993 there were sympathetic articles in mainstream media about Palestinian terrorists.

The phrase didn't stick though, until 2000. That's when one person popularized it: The Guardian's Israel correspondent Suzanne Goldenberg.

Years before Israel withdrew from Gaza, in three weeks she used the phrase three times.

October 7, 2000:

October 18:

And then, the headline on October 24, Page 1:

That seems to be the spark. After that,. the "open air prison" terminology started spreading throughout media - not only for Gaza but initially for the West Bank as well.

Reporters love to imitate.

On December 17, 2001, AP reporter Jamie Tabaray used the phrase in a widely-published story about how awful the early days of the Second Intifada was for Palestinians, who cheered the murder of Israelis.

An Independent writer followed a week later, being perhaps the first to call Gaza "the largest open-air prison in the world" in the media.

The San Francisco Chronicle followed soon after with a photo essay by a "peace activist" quoting a Gaza woman using that phrase.

Academic papers ran with it. Even though the term is pejorative and was never accurate, use of the term went from 70 times in academia in the 2000s to 503 i the 2010s and - so far - 950 times in the 2020s, according to Google Scholar.

The "prison" terminology is just another way to slander Israel. Remember, at the time the Palestinians had rejected a peace plan that would give them a state and chose a campaign of suicide bombings against Jews instead. Israel had no choice but to respond, and that meant limiting access to Israel. If anyone was in prison it was the Israelis, walling themselves off from their murderous neighbors. Israel was not imprisoning Palestinians - it was protecting its citizens from terrorism.

But the phrase was already primed to be used when Israel withdrew from Gaza. It may have been used by Palestinians themselves first, but the Western media simply couldn't resist painting the beleaguered Israelis are the prison wardens.

Which is the same kind of inversion we see with Israel all the time.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)