2025 ~ Elder Of Ziyon

Friday, December 12, 2025

12/12 Links Pt2: The humanitarian front against Israel; The Fake “Johns Hopkins Genetic Study” Meme; Call me Back Podcast: Israel's President, Isaac Herzog

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: The humanitarian front against Israel

So why has Amnesty, which has done so much to poison the West against Israel with a sustained and malevolent campaign of lies designed to destroy it, suddenly lurched toward at least some acknowledgment of the truth?

Perhaps it feels the hot breath on its neck of the Trump administration, which is now threatening to take condign action against those who have assisted the Palestinian Arab terrorist armies in their war of extermination against Israel.

Officials in the administration have reportedly held advanced discussions on hitting the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine “Refugees” (UNWRA) with terrorism-related sanctions. Both Israel and the Trump administration have accused UNWRA of links with Hamas, allegations the agency has vigorously disputed.

Washington halted funding in January 2024 after Israel accused about a dozen UNRWA staff of taking part in the Oct. 7 attack. Israel has also accused UNRWA of taking and guarding hostages, as well as consistently glorifying terrorism in its schools, and teaching its children to hate and murder Jews.

However, the use of humanitarian institutions to launder the war of extermination against Israel goes much further. An NGO Monitor report that was recently released has revealed—from scores of internal Hamas documents—the astonishing extent of the terrorist group’s infiltration and exploitation of international NGOs’ operations in Gaza.

The organizations involved include Catholic Relief Services, funded by Ireland, the United States and the United Nations; the International Medical Corps funded by the European Union, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States and the United Nations; and Medical Aid for Palestinians, whose funders include UNICEF, the World Health Organization and the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

According to the report, the evidence confirms that these NGOs in Gaza do not operate independently or neutrally. They are instead embedded in an institutionalized framework of coercion, intimidation and surveillance that serves Hamas’s terror objectives.

All NGOs operating in Gaza, it says, are required to adhere to strict Hamas security protocols, which include regular engagement with the terror group’s Ministry of Interior and National Security and other ministries.

Local Gazan “guarantors,” approved by Hamas, serve as the point of contact between Hamas and the NGOs. At least 10 such “guarantors” were Hamas members or supporters, or employed by Hamas-affiliated authorities.

‘Expelled From the Community of Which We Were a Part Only Yesterday’ Jean Améry on the Dilemma for Left-Wing Jewish Intellectuals, Sartre’s Freedom of Choice and the Commitment to Israel

What happened on 7 October 2023, and what has been happening since then, have surpassed the Jew-hatred of the 1960s and 70s. Hamas and their supporters invaded Israeli territory, raped, mutilated and slaughtered Israelis and proudly filmed themselves doing so. 1,200 people were murdered in a bestial manner, almost 5,000 were injured in one day alone, and 251 people, mostly Israelis but also foreign nationals whose only ‘crime’ was to be in the Jewish state, were taken hostage into Gaza.

Immediately afterwards, leftist groups throughout the Western world gathered in solidarity not with the victims but with the murderers.[38] Feminist activists either ignored the rapes or treated them as ‘resistance.’[39] The tendency among prominent Holocaust, genocide, and memory scholars to delegitimise Israel by drawing unfounded parallels between the extermination of European Jewry and Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians – already apparent well before 7 October – has intensified over the past two years.[40]

The accusation that Israel is committing genocide is an old classic in the repertoire of anti-Israel protesters. Since 2023, however, this blood libel has made its way into mainstream arts, academia, and politics across the West. It has nothing to do with the facts on the ground, but rather with the own psychological needs of anti-Zionists – we might recall Sartre, Adorno, and Horkheimer. In Germany, the popular chant ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’ was supplemented by the rallying call, ‘Palestine will set us free.’ The redemptive dimension of today’s anti-Israel activism could not be sounded more clearly. ‘Palestine’ has become the new saviour or – in leftist terms – the new revolutionary subject after the proletariat and the Third World failed to deliver on the hopes invested in them.

A truly humane future, once the aspiration of the left – certainly the left Améry considered himself a part of – appears to have been abandoned long ago. The future that today’s leftist activists on the barricades are striving for as ‘liberation’ will not bring about actual redemption of mankind, but a whole different kind of suffering compared to today – suffering reminiscent of the worst horrors humanity had descended into in the 20th century.

When the Germans and their auxiliaries sought to purify the world from misery, the logic of self-preservation, the basis of all rational thought, turned into the logic of extermination: murder for the sake of murder. As a result of its enactment, the Holocaust remains unprecedented to this day. And yet, another descent into barbarism is not banished in the future as long as the conditions that enabled it prevail.

The only practical objection to the world after Auschwitz and the possible repetition of antisemitic extermination today is the Jewish state. Not international law, not human rights declarations, and not – as in present-day Germany’s case – a questionable raison d’état. The fact that antisemitism is intertwined with society at large, or in Adorno’s and Horkheimer’s words ‘anti-semitism and totality have always been profoundly connected,’[41] removes everyone, Jews and non-Jews, from freedom of choice when it comes to the necessity of Israel.

However, Jews feel the ‘crushing pressure’[42] already today. When some side with antisemites and rationalise antisemitic attacks, this phenomenon is often described as ‘Jewish self-hate.’ But such a perception falls short. Because it is based on a displacement: It suggests that the reason for this behaviour lies within the Jew, when in fact it originates outside, in the pressure of antisemitic society.[43] Jews who turn against Jewish self-determination embody, paradoxically, both resistance against and identification with their persecutor. Resistance, because they try to avert the hate against them, identification because they take on their enemies’ gaze. In the attempt to gain self-empowerment, they overlook that antisemitism is not related to what its objects actually do or not do. The security promised by this identification is in fact no security at all. Non-Jews do not experience this pressure. They make their decision – and this crucial difference is all too easily missed – without duress.

Améry’s disconcerting insight is that ultimately no one who cares about a future in which freedom of choice is possible has any true choice today. This is the uncomfortable imposition which cannot be dispelled by omitting Améry’s essay from posthumously published books.

The Fake “Johns Hopkins Genetic Study” Meme

The meme is a fabrication, loosely based on a 2012 study by Dr. Eran Elhaik. In this study, he suggests that a significant number of Ashkenazi Jews are descended from the Khazars—a diverse group of Turkic peoples from the Caucasus region who allegedly converted to Judaism.

This theory is known as the Khazarian Hypothesis and has been discredited as junk science by the academic community.

Elhaik’s study was methodologically flawed from the beginning. There is no Khazar DNA to compare with Ashkenazi Jews, as the Khazars have no living descendants. Elhaik’s use of modern Georgian and Armenian populations as proxies for ancient Khazars has been rejected by leading scientists, who have published indisputable evidence in numerous journals, including the prestigious journal Science.

In addition to the lack of genetic links to the Khazars, the theory is further weakened by the absence of linguistic connections. If Ashkenazi Jews were truly descendants of the Khazars, they would have spoken a Turkic language, not Yiddish, which is a Judeo-Germanic language.

The meme takes the erroneous results of Elhaik’s study even further. The paper was published in the Genome Biology and Evolution journal, not at Johns Hopkins, and it only focused on the DNA of European Jews, not Israelis, as confirmed by the author. Additionally, the figure of 97% does not appear anywhere in Elhaik’s research. Numerous studies on Ashkenazi DNA have been conducted, and while none have proven a link to the Khazars, the overwhelming majority of genetic studies have confirmed that Ashkenazi Jews are genetically linked to the Levant.

12/12 Links Pt1: The Danger Isn’t That the Cease-fire Will Collapse, But That It Will Become Permanent; UNRWA is beyond repair, so it's time to move on

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: The Danger Isn’t That the Cease-fire Will Collapse, But That It Will Become Permanent

The collective armies of Gaza understand that they can stretch out this phase of the process by stalling on the return of the final hostage’s body. That is why Israel is considering moving on to the second phase anyway—not because its leaders don’t care about the remains of Ran Gvili but because waiting for Hamas to trigger the second stage will itself incentivize Hamas to hold on to the body in perpetuity.

Refusing to advance to the second stage without the last hostage remains would be a significant strategic error on Israel’s part. For now, Hamas is waiting to see if it can bait Israel into exactly this error.

The pressure should be on Hamas of course, but also on the Arab states that have signed on to back the fulfillment of this deal. And on Europe, too, for that matter. Any time Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron move from pretending to care about Palestinians to actually caring about Palestinians, it will be welcome.

No one, except perhaps Hamas, wants this state of affairs to remain permanent.

At least that’s what they say. Let’s remember that after the Six-Day War, Israel was prepared to trade back the territories but the Arab states said, famously: no peace with Israel, no recognition of it, no negotiations with it.

Why were they so adamant? Because although they had lost the war against Israel, the Arab states received a consolation prize: The Palestinians were someone else’s problem now. Egypt was glad to be rid of Gaza and Jordan gave up its claims on the West Bank in the 1980s. The Palestinian Arabs could once again be used by the Arab world to weaken Israel with a permanent insurgency, unless by some miracle the Palestinians pulled themselves together enough for statehood.

The Arab states—and the wider Muslim world—are not exactly champing at the bit to contribute to the Gaza stabilization force that would be needed if Hamas were to be disarmed and replaced. Do they want Palestinian life rebuilt and the Palestinians given a chance to be free of Hamas’s totalitarian terror? Because from a certain angle, it’s starting to look as if maybe those Arab states would rather Gaza be split into an indefinite Israeli military occupation and a Hamas-controlled enclave. Perhaps the Arab world is not yet ready to contemplate the end of its conflict with Israel.

JPost Editorial: The West refuses to call out Hamas's blatant manipulation of public opinion

The Palestinian refugee crisis? Israel’s fault – never mind that it was Arab leaders who rejected partition and then launched a war to destroy the Jewish state.

Hunger in Gaza? Not because Hamas brutally attacked Israel and triggered a war. Not because it hides infant formula to inflame a crisis. Instead, blame defaults to Israel, the cruel party in a narrative shaped long before this war began.

For centuries, people were conditioned to believe in Jewish cruelty – the grotesque libels of killing children and using their blood for matzot. Old habits die hard. The vocabulary changes, but the instinct remains: Accuse the Jews first, believe the worst about them, and then investigate later, if at all.

Once in a long while, however, someone from within Arab society, such as Alkhatib, who has lost 31 family members in Gaza since the October 7 massacre, dares to speak up.

He exposed a truth many in the West find inconvenient: Hamas manipulates public opinion while showing utter indifference to the suffering of its own people. If that suffering helps advance its ultimate goal of Israel’s disappearance – and if Western “useful idiots” assist along the way – then so be it.

One final point deserves attention. Alkhatib said the hidden baby formula was stored in warehouses belonging to the Gaza Ministry of Health, the same ministry whose casualty figures are treated as indisputable fact by much of the international media. If that ministry conceals life-saving supplies to manufacture famine, why should anyone unquestioningly trust its numbers or its claims?

The answer should be obvious. The tragedy is that, for many, it still isn’t.

UNRWA is beyond repair, so it's time to move on

Moving from axing UNRWA to a constructive post-Gaza-war framework, the “international community” must focus on rebuilding Palestinian society – free from rank corruption, destructive indoctrination, coddling of terrorism, and the overall moral rot that for too long has contaminated international politics relating to Palestinians.

First and foremost, this means elimination of refugee status for all Palestinians living in Gaza, Judea, and Samaria. “Refugee camps” must be transformed into regular neighborhoods or towns, and their residents redefined as, well, local residents – not refugees.

Second is that meaningful curriculum overhauls should be undertaken in Palestinian educational institutions from kindergarten through university, eliminating antisemitic and anti-Israel materials, and the adoption of population-wide deradicalization initiatives.

Third is that action toward total demilitarization of Palestinian areas should be taken (excepting lightly armed police forces), as envisioned and promised in the Oslo Accords 30 years ago – but never pursued seriously.

Alas, Israel has little confidence in the ability of anybody to swiftly rebuild Palestinian society or “reform” Palestinian government, unless the Palestinians themselves wish to do so.

Throwing more aid money at the Palestinians certainly won’t help, just as it has not done the trick over the past thirty years since the Oslo Accords were signed.

Despite tens of billions of dollars and euros invested in the Palestinian Authority by the “international community,” there is no democracy, no rule of law, no transparency, no sustainability, no investment in economic stability, and no peace education in the PA. Not a single refugee has been resettled. Not one hospital has been built in the West Bank: only one sewage treatment plant.

But there is plenty of nepotism and corruption, “pay-for-slay” handouts (meaning the incentivizing and rewarding of terrorism against Israel), violent propagandizing against Israel (including support for Hamas’s October 7 invasion and massacres), and diplomatic assault on Israel in every possible international forum.

As for Western “security assistance” to the PA, this has produced mixed results, at best. The authority does not effectively control key terrorist nodes in the West Bank, and its security personnel have repeatedly participated in or facilitated terror attacks against Israeli civilians and soldiers. PA security personnel account for 12% of all Palestinian terrorists held by Israel.

In short, the overall return on Western investment in Palestinian maturity and independence is abysmal. Real reform of Palestinian government and society is going to be a long, arduous process and must involve penalty and penance, not just reward and recognition.

Which is why it is asinine of France, Britain, Canada, and others to resurrect illusions of imminent Palestinian statehood. Regrettably, their gambit is a recipe for devastating disappointment and protracted conflict.

JTA has a story about a video that was found of six doomed hostages lighting Chanukah candles in a Hamas tunnel in 2023:

Two months after they were taken hostage, and eight months before they would be murdered, the Israelis who would later be known as the “Beautiful Six” were herded into a new section of the Hamas tunnel where they had been held.

There, their captors took hours of video of the young adults as they lit a makeshift menorah, sang traditional Hanukkah songs and, after being prompted, offered holiday greetings to the camera.

“Where are the sufganiyot?” asked Eden Yerushalmi.

“We’re waiting for Roladin in the land [of Israel],” joked Hersh Goldberg-Polin, referring to one of the most prominent purveyors of Hanukkah donuts in Israel.

The other hostages — Ori Danino, Almog Sarusi, Alex Lubanov and Carmel Gat — sit with their fellow captives. Sarusi appears visibly distressed as he makes the blessing over the candles, and the cameraman captures wrenching comments as the six young adults sing the song “Maoz Tzur.”

These six were murdered on August 29, 2024.

But where did the video come from?

The IDF said the video was recovered about three months ago during a raid on the European Hospital in Khan Younis, where senior Hamas figure Mohammad Sinwar was also found and killed.

Oh, so Hamas really did use hospitals as shields.

Funny, I haven't seen a word about this from Amnesty or Human Rights Watch. And also not a word from Doctors Without Borders or Physicians for Human Rights.

You would think they would be very upset at military use of hospitals, wouldn't you?

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

Iran pressures Jews not to follow or "like" Israeli social media accounts

You know how Iran claims it treats its Jews so well? Well, not really.

From Iran International:

Homayoun Sameh Yah Najafabadi, the Jewish representative in Iran's parliament, said on Monday that he had been summoned by security agencies over Jewish users’ likes and comments on Israeli content.

“Unfortunately, in the past two weeks, I was summoned to these agencies because some fellow Jews posted comments and liked false content, causing misunderstandings among the country's intelligence agencies,” Najafabadi said in an open letter published on his Telegram channel.

Najafabadi called on members of the Jewish community in Iran to refrain from leaving comments or likes on social media that might cause suspicion.

“You are requested, if you have published any unusual, sensitive, or misconstruable comments or likes in cyberspace, to delete them as soon as possible,” the letter said.

“If you are a member of channels and pages of the Zionist regime, including Israel in Persian, and other hostile pages and channels, it is essential to immediately unfollow and cancel membership,” the letter added.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) maintains a series of active accounts and channels on social media platforms such as X, Instagram, Facebook and Telegram in Persian.

“Continuing membership in the mentioned channels or failing to delete comments and likes could lead to judicial problems, and pursuing and resolving the issue in the future will become much more difficult,” it said.

The letter is the latest document in an extensive campaign by Iranian intelligence agencies against the Jewish community, which has intensified after a 12-day war with Israel in June.

Since the recent military confrontation with Israel, dozens of Iranian Jews have been arrested on charges of "collaboration with hostile regimes.”

Kamran Hekmati, a 70-year-old Jewish man from New York, a father and grandfather who runs a jewelry business and holds dual American-Iranian citizenship, is currently detained. Rights groups, colleagues, and friends say he is being questioned over a past trip to Israel.

Hekmati was sentenced to prison in Iran for a trip he made 13 years ago to Israel to hold a ceremony for his son.

Warning the entire Jewish community to toe the line or else is about as antisemitic a message as can be.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

Last one out turns off the darkness (Forest Rain)

By Forest Rain

“Don’t worry Ma. See, my arm is fine!”

He knew his arm wasn’t fine. She knew it too.

They both knew there was no way he was staying home. Not after the videos he had seen, not after the emergency message he received, the message all policemen in the area received, the message they thought they would never hear: a call to respond to an invasion.

It didn’t matter that he had a broken shoulder and was scheduled for surgery in a few days. He was trained to defend the innocent, and nothing would stop him.

It was October 7th, and his country needed him.

Sgt. First Class Ran Gvili of the Yasam Special Patrol Unit put on his uniform, took his father’s car, and drove to the police station. He met his team, donned battle gear, gathered weapons and ammunition, and drove straight into the eye of the storm: “The Al Aqsa Flood.”

At the Saad junction, they found themselves in battle with the invaders. They helped party-goers escape the Nova massacre and reach safety. Ran was shot in the leg. He fashioned a tourniquet and battled on. At Alumim, he and other warriors managed to prevent the invaders from entering the kibbutz, saving those sheltering there—but at a terrible cost. The attackers had already slaughtered 22 workers from Thailand and Nepal and taken others hostage. Fourteen people fleeing the Nova party were murdered near the kibbutz, and five defenders of Israel were killed.

We think.

Ran’s brother, also a policeman, assumed Ran was home, learning through the news about friends and colleagues who had been killed. After all, Ran was injured and scheduled for surgery.

When Ran’s phone rang, the battle was raging. His brother was shocked to hear him explain where he was and to learn that he had also been shot in the hand: “Don’t tell our parents. I’m shot, but I’m fine.”

Separated from his team, with a broken shoulder and two gunshot wounds, Ran sheltered from the attackers and passed critical information to the relevant security forces, doing everything he could to bring help to the battle. When the invaders discovered his location, he fought them alone.

The bodies of fourteen terrorists were found at the point where he had been sheltering. Ran was gone.

It took more than fourteen to subdue him and take him to Gaza.

Intelligence officials discovered footage of his unconscious body being taken to Gaza. They informed the Gvili family that the injuries Ran sustained are not survivable—unless given emergency intensive care, which he did not receive. None of the liberated hostages saw him during their captivity.

No one knows for certain what happened to Ran. Until his body is returned, his family clings to the faint hope that this powerful warrior—their Rani—could somehow survive.

He was among the first to race toward the battle and is now the last who has yet to return home. His mother says Ran always made sure everyone else was ok before thinking of himself. It is like him to be last, to make sure everyone else goes first.

Hollywood has nothing on us. Our heroes are real.

I never met Ran, but I have met his mother, Talik Gvili, and seen her in action. She is a hero, a warrior of a different kind. It is no surprise that her son is a hero.

Since October 7th, Talik’s heart has ached for her Rani, but she has devoted her mind to defending our people. She has spoken in the Knesset and around the world, advocating for the release of all hostages through strength. Only victory over Hamas will protect us from future invasions. She says, “I am the mother of a hostage. I do not want to be the grandmother of a hostage.”

One of the most extraordinary moments I have witnessed was between Talik Gvili and Einav Zangauker, mother of Matan, who at the time was held hostage in Gaza. I was accompanying families of hostages to the Knesset, where, during committee sessions, families were given the chance to speak to parliament members and other government officials. Each family spoke in turn; all listened respectfully, no matter what was said or how long it took. Some pleaded with the government officials to save their loved ones. Others explained that they expected their loved ones to be saved in a way that didn’t endanger the future of Israel.

Einav Zangauker unleashed her fear and frustration at the committee head, haranguing him with devastating accusations: “The blood of my son will be on your hands. They will bring him back dead, and you will manage the funeral and the shiva.”

There were some seventy people in the room. We all sat in silence. The more she spoke, the more extreme her words became, and the more everyone cringed, devastated, in their seats.

Until Talik spoke.

It was like magic. I don’t remember her exact words, but with grace and dignity, she broke the torrent of Einav’s rage, refocused her, and calmed her to the point where she got up, walked around the table, hugged Talik, and sat down next to her, holding her hand.

Allowing us all to breathe again.

Talik has rightly received awards and praise for her wise and eloquent advocacy. After one event, I approached her and told her I admired her greatly but needed to correct one huge mistake in her speech. Startled, she focused on me. I said, “You claim that you aren’t a hero, but that ignores what heroes are. They aren’t just warriors in battle; heroes are people who go above and beyond what the average person would do in the same situation.” She looked at me, unmoving. I continued, “When this happened, you could have crawled into bed, pulled the covers over your head, and refused to move. It would have been much easier.”

Her eyes softened. She sighed and nodded. “That’s true. Thank you.”

Hero. Mother of a hero. I wish I could give her a fraction of the strength she has given for all of us, for our safety, for our future. Now her Rani, one of the first to race into the inferno, is the last in Gaza.

We say that “the last one out turns off the light.” Perhaps Ran, the last one out, will be the one who turns off the darkness that has taken over Gaza.

Perhaps he won’t come home until we make sure the darkness is extinguished. There is a job that has yet to be completed... We are responsible for making sure that happens.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

There's a word that's been quietly spreading from Hebrew into English: firgun. It describes something that English strangely lacks: the genuine, unselfish joy in another person's success. No ulterior motives, just pure celebration of someone else's accomplishment.

The word entered modern Hebrew in the 1970s from Yiddish farginen, which itself came from German vergönnen. But here's where it gets interesting: in Yiddish, farginen typically meant the opposite—to begrudge. When Israelis borrowed it, they inverted the meaning entirely, transforming a term about withholding joy into one expressing its opposite.

And they were right to do so. Because firgun captures something essential about Israeli culture that the rest of the world struggles to understand.

The closest word in any language to firgun is mudita - a Buddhist term meaning sympathetic joy in others' good fortune. It's considered one of the four "divine abodes," the highest states of being. Buddhist teachers describe mudita as "the most difficult to cultivate" of these sublime attitudes. Extensive meditation practices exist to help develop it.

Think about that: what requires intensive spiritual practice and is considered exceptionally difficult in Buddhist tradition comes naturally enough to Israelis that they coined a casual slang term for it.

But it shouldn't be surprising. Israel ranks 8th in the 2025 World Happiness Report having reached as high as 4th place in 2023. This is remarkable for a country in its second year of war, surrounded by hostile neighbors, facing constant security threats, and experiencing significant internal political tensions. Israeli young adults also rank highest in the world for self-reported quality of social connections.

Year after year, through wars and conflicts, Israel maintains its position among the world's happiest countries. Israel's ranking reflects structural characteristics like social cohesion, quality of relationships, and high levels of mutual support - exactly the kinds of things firgun cultivates.

The contrast with international perception couldn't be starker. While Israel is constantly portrayed as militaristic, aggressive, or morally compromised, the lived reality of Israelis tells a very different story. What the world sees as a nation of villains, Israelis experience as a society of mutual support and genuine celebration of each other's success.

This fits in with Jewish thought. The Torah's prohibition against coveting - lo tachmod - is about cultivating a completely different relationship with other people's blessings.

The commandment is unusual. The other negative Ten Commandments prohibit actions: don't murder, don't steal, don't commit adultery. But "don't covet" addresses the heart. It commands us to feel differently about others' good fortune. The Rabbis asked: how can the Torah command a feeling? Can you really control whether you feel envy?

The wisdom is this: when you train yourself to see the totality of another person's situation, envy dissolves. There's an old Yiddish saying that captures this perfectly: "If everyone brought their bundle of troubles to sell in the market, each person would quickly take back his own." You might envy individual things—your neighbor's house, their spouse, their success—but when you consider everything about someone's life, their complete package of joys and struggles, would you really want to trade? Once you understand that you can't cherry-pick just the good parts of someone else's life, the commandment against coveting becomes not just possible but natural. And in its place, something remarkable emerges: the ability to genuinely celebrate their joys without feeling diminished.The wisdom is this: when you train yourself to see the totality of another person's situation, envy dissolves. And in its place, something remarkable emerges: the ability to genuinely celebrate their joys without feeling diminished.

Jewish tradition has another concept that maps perfectly onto firgun: ayin tova, the "good eye." In Pirkei Avot, Rabbi Eliezer identifies it as one of Abraham's defining traits. Having a good eye means looking well upon others, wishing them well, and being happy in their successes - it refers not to the sharpness of one's sight, but the generosity of one's vision..

Ayin tova is the Jewish framework that makes firgun possible. When you cultivate a generous eye, when you train yourself to see the good in others, to wish them well without agenda, then celebrating their success becomes natural, not difficult.

This is moral engineering in action. The Torah didn't just prohibit envy; it created the conceptual and spiritual infrastructure to make its opposite natural. And in modern Israel, speaking a similar Hebrew to the Torah itself, Israelis inherited this framing. Firgun didn't need to be invented from whole cloth; it emerged organically from a culture steeped in these values.

And here's the painful irony: while the world portrays Israel as uniquely evil, as a society built on oppression and aggression, the actual lived experience of Israelis reflects something quite different. A society where young people have the strongest social connections in the world. Where mutual support remains high even under extreme stress. Where celebrating others' success has its own untranslatable word because it happens so naturally.

The gap between perception and reality here is vast. International media and activists have created an image of Israeli society that bears no resemblance to the measurable facts about how Israelis actually live and treat each other. They've made a pariah of a nation that, by empirical measurement, demonstrates more of what the world claims to value - happiness, social cohesion, mutual support - than their accusers.

Meanwhile, Israelis continue doing what comes naturally: supporting each other, celebrating each other's successes, and maintaining a resilient joy that survives conditions that would break other societies. They've even got a word for it.

Firgun. Try it sometime. It might be hard at first—the Buddhists warn you it will be. But Jews have had a few thousand years' head start.

(h/t Irene)

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

12/11 Links Pt2: The Islamification of Western Democracies; Surging Socialism and Anti-Semitism Masquerading as Anti-Zionism; Study reveals majority of Gaza war 'journalists' tied to terror groups

From Ian:

The Islamification of Western Democracies

Europe's Muslim population has surged from less than 1% in 1970 to a projected 10-14% by 2050. Sweden potentially reaches 31%, Austria 21%, the UK 19%, and Germany 20%. Western civilization is being replaced - committing demographic suicide through its own democratic processes and ideological paralysis, acute passivity, and naivete. Moreover, Western societies have criminalized any discussion of this takeover.

No conquest is required - only open borders, welfare incentives, family reunification policies, refugee obligations, and a fertility differential guaranteeing Muslim demographic growth while native European populations collapse below replacement level.

Ideological conquest has weaponized social media and digital propaganda. Iran, Qatar, and Turkey invest billions in bot networks, influencer campaigns, and media empires amplifying pro-Islamic and anti-Israel narratives while recruiting Western progressives to accelerate Western ideological dismantling. The Muslim Brotherhood, founded in 1928 to establish a caliphate based on Islamic supremacy, operates through media outlets, NGOs, political parties, mosques, and community organizations.

The Muslim population percentage in Canada increased by 145% from 2000 to 2025, while the U.S. increased by 90% in the same time period. Democratic societies should enable all citizens to seek office regardless of religion. The pattern that merits examination is whether officials elected primarily by Muslim constituencies adopt policies that prioritize narrow community interests over broader societal integration, whether they challenge fundamental Western values, and whether they systematically oppose Israel regardless of circumstance.

The effects of Islamification and the strategic use of social and mainstream media manipulation by jihadist state actors has already caused a significant shift in the way the Western world treats Israel. 17 out of 27 EU member states now recognize Palestine - effectively rewarding terrorism with diplomatic victory. European-funded NGOs systematically file cases against Israeli officials and soldiers in national and international courts.

Will Western civilization implement corrective policies or accept the continuing trajectory toward demographic replacement, political capitulation, and civilizational collapse?

Nikki Haley: America must expose the left's dangerous falsehoods about Israel

The criticism of Israel is a plain attempt to defame and delegitimize the country to promote its extinction. Yet the left’s leaders either repeat this hateful language or allow it to continue unchecked.

A man carries two Israeli flags during a pro-Israel rally outside the Israeli Embassy on October 8, 2023, in Washington, D.C. (Samuel Corum/Getty Images)

Democrats’ turn toward antisemitism is disturbing enough. But the same evil is now creeping into the right, though it’s not yet as widespread as it is on the left. It’s also heartening that many conservatives are vigorously pushing back. But there’s still an urgent need for every leader on the right to unequivocally state that standing with Israel is in America’s interests.

Israel is a military and intelligence juggernaut in a strategically vital region of the world. When America supports Israel, we are directly investing in the protection of our own citizens. Israel is fighting enemies that seek our destruction too. When we sell weapons to the Israeli military, we spare our own troops from being sent into harm’s way. Speaker Mike Johnson explains importance of US-Israel alliance Video

In the last two years, America hasn’t sent a single solider into battle against Hamas or Hezbollah, though both are committed to America’s destruction. If America abandoned Israel, it wouldn’t be long before we had to send our sons and daughters into battle against the same terrorists and tyrants.

These truths are the best antidote to the lies of antisemitism. History shows where those lies lead: to the actual genocide of the Jewish people. Preventing that tragedy is a moral imperative and a national necessity.

It starts with leaders who have the courage to say — and do — what’s right.

US: Surging Socialism and Anti-Semitism Masquerading as Anti-Zionism

Two decades ago, Islamism was virtually absent from the US political landscape.

Islamic antisemitism has gained ground in recent years, not just in the US but also in Europe. It appears fueled not only by adversaries of the US such as Iran, but also by domestic non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that appear to hide the identities of foreign donors.

Many anti-Israel protesters claim to support the Palestinian cause, but oddly none of them ever calls for the Palestinians' rights from their own leaders for freedom of speech, women's and children's rights, or even for a stop to entrenched corruption, arbitrary arrests, torture, extrajudicial executions, and other crimes against them.

The problem was not, as some have tried to claim, simply that [Tucker] Carlson invited [the neo-Nazi Nick] Fuentes, so much as Carlson's disinclination to question what he said. The veteran journalist Edward R. Murrow invited US Senator Joseph R. McCarthy for an interview but probed his statements. Carlson failed to indicate any disapproval of, or question, Fuentes's antisemitic remarks... What Carlson did was simply to give Fuentes a platform to expand his influence, unchallenged. The interview has been viewed online more than 20 million times.

This new hostility to Western civilization has also acted as a destabilizing force in major US foreign policy alliances. Israel, like it or not, is the United States' principal and most reliable ally in the Middle East.... As Israel is a world leader in technology, American investments there yield far more than they cost. Islamists and other enemies of the United States doubtless hope that if the US abandons Israel, this would lead to both a substantial weakening of America and other democracies, and a strengthening of tyrannies -- notably Islamist tyrannies.

12/11 Links Pt1: Hamas’s Stenographers Own Their Share of the Carnage; Trump Admin Weighs Terror Sanctions for UNRWA; Hostages shown celebrating Chanukah underground before execution by Hamas

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: Hamas’s Stenographers Own Their Share of the Carnage

It’s not enough to be horrified by Hamas. Any healthy society must also be horrified by anyone who shared Hamas propaganda throughout the war.

The legions of pro-Hamas lemmings marching throughout American and European cities have tricked us into lowering the civilizational bar. We tend to be sated with scraps—just denouncing Hamas has become some kind of achievement. But the scale of Hamas’s depravity should leave its useful idiots tortured by their own conscience as well.

Because they ran interference for stuff like this:

“The father of Noa Marciano has spoken publicly for the first time, sharing harrowing details of his daughter’s final moments in Gaza.

“Speaking to a small crowd, her father Avi claimed that Noa was murdered by a doctor in Shifa hospital, who injected air into her veins – and that the family found out about her death after they were sent a video of her murder via the social media network Telegram.

“‘Noa is begging for her life,’ he said of the video, adding that, by the end of the clip, ‘she’s sweating but there’s no life to her body.’”

Noa Marciano was taken alive from Nahal Oz on October 7, along with six other female soldiers. Hamas blamed her death on an Israeli airstrike, and media were happy to repeat the claim. Hamas filmed Marciano in a hostage video pleading with Israel to stop the airstrikes, then filmed Marciano’s dead body.

What had actually happened, however, was that Hamas brought Marciano to Shifa Hospital alive and then executed her there in cold blood. Shifa was one of the hospitals that Israel said were being used by Hamas, sometimes to hold hostages, while the media pooh-poohed the claims. This is why “according to the Gaza Health Ministry” is insufficient, even if it’s followed by “… which is controlled by Hamas.” Once you know a claim or statement comes from Hamas, you cannot play the he-said-she-said game, as if dueling Israeli and Hamas claims have equal weight. Reciting Hamas talking points isn’t “reporting.”

That is especially true on subjects such as how a hostage died in Hamas captivity. The lie that IDF strikes killed the Bibas children persisted until the truth came to light: Palestinian terrorists brutally murdered the children with their own hands, then mutilated their bodies to hide the evidence.

‘Everything Is On the Table’: Trump Admin Weighs Terror Sanctions for UNRWA

The Trump administration says that "everything is on the table"—including terrorism-related sanctions—as it moves closer to taking fresh punitive measures against the Hamas-linked United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), according to three senior officials, who told the Washington Free Beacon that the aid group’s "time playing a role in Gaza is over."

"The Trump Administration is currently exploring all options to hold [UNRWA] accountable," a senior State Department official familiar with the matter said. "UNRWA is a corrupt organization with a proven track record of aiding and abetting terrorists."

Reuters reported earlier on Thursday that "terrorism-related sanctions" are among the list of options. The official said "no final decisions have yet been made," but did confirm that "everything is on the table."

The high-level discussions come as federal investigators compile mounting evidence of the U.N.’s complicity in Hamas’s aid diversion schemes. This includes instances in which Hamas "commandeered U.N. aid trucks," embedded terrorist operatives in "U.N. agencies or at U.N. facilities," and ensured humanitarian goods were "directly delivered to Hamas officials," as the Free Beacon reported earlier this year. Internal Hamas documents reviewed by the Free Beacon last week show the extent to which the terror group infiltrated U.N.-affiliated NGOs in Gaza, using them as intelligence resources and effectively controlling the network of non-profits operating in the territory.

A second U.S. official briefed on the UNRWA discussions said that, whatever route the administration takes, the aid organization will not play a role in Gaza’s future humanitarian landscape.

"UNRWA was found to have explicitly supported Hamas and other terrorist groups," the second senior official said, noting that dozens of UNRWA staffers were found to have directly participated in Hamas’s Oct. 7 terror spree. "Their time playing a role in Gaza is over."

Israeli intelligence, for its part, determined in April that "among the 12,521 UNRWA employees in the Gaza Strip, at least 1,462 (12%) are members of Hamas or other designated terrorist organizations."

The Trump administration has already taken action against UNRWA in the months since President Donald Trump returned to office. In April, the administration stripped UNRWA of its immunity in U.S. courts, allowing a flood of lawsuits from the families of those killed by Hamas. The State Department informed Congress in July that it had "determined UNRWA is irredeemably compromised" and must be dismantled, according to a notice first reported by the Free Beacon.

NYPost Editorial: Europeans finally waking up to Hamas-enabling UNRWA scam

It looks like the days are numbered for the terrorist-infested UN Relief and Works Agency, as UNRWA loses support from major European nations that have long backed it.

Cheers for Germany, Italy, Czechia and Hungary, joined by Bulgaria and Latvia last Friday in withholding support for the renewal of UNRWA’s charter. Austria, Romania and Lithuania joined in on a separate resolution.

Close observers have always known that UNRWA — the special UN agency charged with caring for Palestinian refugees, and only Palestinian refugees — works hand-in-glove with Hamas in Gaza.

But then it turned out that UNRWA directly employed Hamas fighters who joined in the Oct. 7, 2022, terror assault on Israel; the course of the war exposed many more, deep Hamas-UNRWA ties.

Israel has since banned UNRWA from working in its territory, and Washington cut off aid to the agency early this year, following a temporary suspension under President Joe Biden.

Israel, citing non-payment of taxes, even took over a former UNRWA center in East Jerusalem, raising the national standard in place of the flag of the United Nations.

Without Israel’s cooperation, UNRWA’s capacity to work in Gaza is next to zero, but that didn’t stop more than 150 nations voting Friday to keep the agency rattling along.

Remember: Every other refugee population in the world is helped by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, which assists people displaced by war or persecution in resettlement and integration into their new homes; former refugees become residents and eventually citizens, losing their refugee status.

Only Palestinians, under UNRWA’s “care,” retain refugee status forever, even unto the third, fourth and fifth generations — and so perpetuating the eternal victimhood of the Palestinian people by shackling them to aid and legalizing their segregation inside neighboring nations long decades after their forebears arrived.

Deradicalizing Gaza Is Measured in Decades, Not Months

Hamas in Gaza was not merely a militant faction but a ruling system embedded in society. For nearly two decades, Hamas shaped culture, education, and everyday life. Hamas's ideological appeal remains durable because hostility toward Israel in Gaza is not dependent on Hamas alone; rather, Hamas has cultivated a social base that can keep it alive even without formal rule.

Hamas may be too weakened to govern Gaza effectively in the short run, but still strong enough - through ideology, loyalty networks, and residual armed capability - to prevent stable alternatives from taking root. The organization's disarmament is framed internally as betrayal of a divine cause. Voluntary demobilization is close to impossible. Hamas has every incentive to reorganize under another name or structure rather than dissolve.

Moreover, Gaza's wider armed ecosystem still remains, with dozens of jihadist factions and clan-based militias, many of which are hostile to Israel and in some cases more extreme than Hamas.

Hamas is sustained by a public it helped shape. Over decades, Hamas embedded religious and political indoctrination into schools, mosques, charities, youth institutions, and cultural life, producing a population in which jihadist framing became routine and institutionalized. For roughly 1.4 million Palestinians across Gaza and Judea and Samaria, born and raised under Hamas's ideological influence, Hamas is part of the worldview they inherited.

Accordingly, deradicalizing Gaza is measured in decades, not months. Hamas is embedded in a radicalized society. Deradicalization without social transformation is impossible. Gaza's future turns on whether a non-Hamas authority can emerge that is strong enough to govern, legitimate enough to win public compliance, and capable enough to dismantle the wider militia culture that Hamas helped entrench.

Paranoid Schizophrenics Hope Candace Owens Doesn't Give Them Bad Name (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook and Substack pages.

Bedlam, December 11 - Tormented souls navigating worlds of elaborate delusions, from invisible persecutors to cosmic conspiracies, are expressing growing unease: that firebrand commentator Candace Owens, with her increasingly outlandish claims, might tarnish the credibility of their cadre.

For decades, these individuals have contended with visions that government agents beam thoughts into their heads, or interdimensional entities dictate global events. But now, as Owens amplifies theories that strain even the most elastic imaginations, they're concerned she'll make their conditions seem like mere amateur hour.

Consider Harold "Shadow Chaser" Wilkins, a retired mechanic from Ohio who believes the CIA implants microchips via flu shots. "I've been fighting off these phantom trackers for years," Wilkins shared, glancing nervously over his shoulder. "But when Owens goes on about Brigitte Macron being a man—staking her whole reputation on it—it's like she's borrowing from my playbook, but without the nuance. People might think all us delusionals are just copying her podcast."

Owens's fixation on France's First Lady began circulating widely in 2024, alleging Brigitte Macron was born male and named Jean-Michel Trogneux. This led to a defamation lawsuit by the Macrons in July 2025, seeking to debunk the claims with scientific evidence. But Owens escalated, claiming in November that the Macrons had ordered her assassination, even reporting it to U.S. authorities.

"That's next-level paranoia," said Wilkins. "My delusions are personal; hers are international incidents. If she keeps this up, doctors might start prescribing meds based on her episodes instead of mine."

The anxiety intensifies with Owens's theories surrounding Charlie Kirk, the late founder of Turning Point USA, who was assassinated earlier in 2025. Owens has spun webs of intrigue, alleging betrayals within TPUSA, fabricated stories by the organization, and even linking Kirk's death to the Macrons and foreign forces, and accusing Kirk's widow Erika of profiting from or enjoying the resulting sympathy and media attention. She questioned the role of Kirk shooter Tyler Robinson and his alleged lover Lance Twiggs, claimed fingerprints were planted, and listed "10 verifiable lies" from TPUSA about the event.

"I see betrayals in my sleep—friends turning into spies," confided Lisa "Echo Listener" Ramirez, a former librarian from Texas who hears voices plotting against her. "But Owens tying Kirk's shooting to French presidents and internal saboteurs? Folks might dismiss my real struggles as 'Owens-inspired' nonsense."

Perhaps most troubling to this community are Owens' pronouncements on Jewis and Israel, which have drawn widespread accusations of antisemitism. She has echoed tropes about Jewish influence, defended Kanye West's outbursts, and feuded with former ally Ben Shapiro over such remarks.

More recently, Owens claimed Stalin was Jewish, labeled Kabbalists as pedophiles, and called Israel a "cult nation." She accused a rabbi of bribing pastors to criticize her and faced death threats from a New Jersey man over comments about a prominent rabbi.

"My delusions involve secret societies, sure," admitted Ramirez. "But when Owens rants about Jewish cabals and global manipulations, it's like she's amplifying my worst nights. I don't want my therapy sessions turning into debates about her YouTube clips."

Psychologists observing this phenomenon note the irony: while schizophrenia involves involuntary distortions, Owens's public declarations are deliberate. Dr. Marcus Hale, a specialist in delusional disorders, observes, "These patients often feel isolated in their realities. Seeing a high-profile figure echo similar themes can validate or exacerbate their symptoms, but it also risks stigmatizing the condition further."

In online support groups, posters fret: "Her Macron mania and Kirk conspiracies make my alien abductions seem tame. And the Jewish stuff? That's crossing into territories even my shadows avoid." Another added, "If she doesn't dial it back, we'll all be lumped in with her—therapists might just hand out restraining orders against podcasts." These paranoid souls cling to their private worlds, hoping her public spectacles don't eclipse their own. Their plea is simple: let us hallucinate in peace.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

In the hallowed halls of postmodern academia, where tenure is a blood sport and originality is measured in hyphens, a wondrous dual apparatus hums day and night: the Anti-Israel Washing Machine and its grim companion, the Lexicide Factory. Pity the poor scholars trapped inside this contraption. Surrounded by an ocean of Israel-hating papers - thousands upon thousands accusing the Jewish state of every sin from apartheid to zoocide - they desperately scramble to distinguish themselves.

How? By creating new words!

The Israel haters are inventing ever-more exotic ways to paint Israel as so uniquely evil that plain old "genocide" or "occupation" simply won't do. The dictionary, that humble servant of language, explodes under the strain, unable to contain the sheer, bespoke malevolence they ascribe to the world's only Jewish nation.

The Washing Machine: Spinning Progressive Values into Conspiracy Theory

First, the Washing Machine. This perpetual-motion marvel takes Israel's genuine achievements - LGBTQ+ rights in Tel Aviv, cutting-edge environmental tech, a booming vegan scene - and spins them into sinister deceptions. Pinkwashing! Greenwashing! Veganwashing! Studentwashing! It's as if any progressive value Israel embraces must be a cynical ploy to "launder" its crimes, while the same values in other nations are considered admirable by the same progressive crowd.

In a field drowning in critiques, how can any ambitious academic you stand out? Coin a new "-washing," of course. Below is just a sliver of the output, hyperlinked to the papers that birthed them.

Term	Description	Key Source
Pinkwashing	Promoting LGBTQ+ rights to mask occupation.	Schulman (2012), Israel/Palestine and the Queer International
Greenwashing	Highlighting eco-innovations to obscure destruction.	Hughes et al. (2023), Journal of Political Ecology
Sportswashing	Using sports events to normalize policies.	Dubinsky (2023), Place Branding and Public Diplomacy
Veganwashing	"Vegan nation" branding to whitewash violence.	Alloun (2020), Journal of Intercultural Studies
Foodwashing	Culinary narratives to gloss over dispossession.	Baron & Press-Barnathan (2021), International Political Sociology
Studentwashing	Student villages in settlements as "youthful" laundering.	Schwake & Allegra (2024), Geographical Review
Wine-washing	Settlement wineries via "terroir" marketing.	Handel et al. (2019), Environment and Planning D
Sumoud-washing	Co-opting Palestinian resilience in queer narratives.	Hatoum & Ghazzawi (2022), Thesis in Kohl Journal
Purplewashing (Feminist-washing)	Gender equality to justify security policies.	Oliver (2024), Scripps Senior Thesis
Democraticwashing	Portraying Israel as "flawed democracy" to deflect apartheid.	Pardo (2024), Democratization
Guiltwashing	Instrumentalizing Holocaust memory to silence critiques.	Hanafi (2025), Dialogical Sociology
Techwashing	Using tech innovations to deflect criticism of occupation.	+972 Magazine (2013/updated)
Artwashing	Promoting arts/culture to whitewash genocide and apartheid.	BDS Movement (2025)

I'm sure I'm missing some. Some start in NGOs and migrate to academia, others slither the opposite way. It's overwhelming: a semantic suds-storm drowning nuance, where Israel's every exhale is a PR ploy. The entire exercise is meant to turn every Israeli innovation or example of progressive values into a weapon against it.

Israel can do no right - just add "-washing" to what any normal nation would be proud of to turn it into a slur.

The Lexicide Factory: Murdering Language One Suffix at a Time

But the real masterpiece is the adjoining Lexicide Factory, an industrial slaughterhouse for words. Here, "genocide" is chopped into boutique cuts: not just killing people, but killing space (spaciocide), homes (domicide), schools (scholasticide), healthcare (medicide), even journalists (mediacide) and childhood itself (childcide). The assembly line never stops. Gaza's tragedy demands precision, they say - or is it chasing tenure?

Pity these desperate linguists, elbow-deep in the carnage. With ICJ cases and UN reports already labeling events as potential genocide, what's left for the ambitious postdoc? Slice it finer! Below, a blood-soaked catalog - hyperlinked to the origin papers.

Term	Description	Key Source
Spaciocide	Targeting Palestinian space for expulsion.	Hanafi (2009), Third World Quarterly
Scholasticide	Obliteration of education systems.	Erakat & Gordon (2024), Journal of Genocide Research
Domicide	Systematic home destruction.	Rajagopal (2023), UN Report
Ecocide	Environmental devastation to unground populations.	Forensic Architecture (2024) Report
Politicide	Annihilation of political will.	Kimmerling (2003), Politicide
Economicide	Engineered economic collapse.	Kubursi & Naqib (2008), Journal of Palestine Studies
Sociocide	Wounding society's cultural base.	Galtung (2010), Russell Tribunal
Memoricide	Erasure of historical memory.	Pappe (2006), The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine
Medicide	Targeted healthcare obliteration.	UN OHCHR (2025) Statement
Gazacide	Ontological obliteration in Gaza.	Nijim (2025), Critical Sociology
Urbicide	Deliberate urban fabric demolition.	Graham (2003), New Left Review
Infanticide	Policy-embedded baby-killing.	Daniele (2025), Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
Mediacide	Extermination of media to erase voices.	IFJ (2025) Report

Oh, the humanity! These poor academics, marooned in echo chambers of intersectional outrage, must innovate or perish. In an ocean where "Israel bad" is the default tide, they dive deeper, coining new terms faster than the OED can keep up. The Jewish state isn't just wrong - it's uniquely monstrous, requiring a thesaurus of terror no other conflict demands. The inversion of reality is complete: collateral damage in a war becomes the military goal and the destruction of the enemy is incidental.

This isn't scholarship; it's a pathological obsession. Academics love coining terms anyway, "washing" and "-cide" are lazy ways to do so without diverting any energy to look up Greek or Latin roots.

One day, perhaps, they'll coin a term for their own affliction: Obsessiziocide, the crazed compulsion in pursuit of the perfect anti-Israel neologism.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

The New Media and Society academic journal reports on a phenomenon of the term "#JewGoal" - a slur that has spread from the online gaming community to actual football (soccer) games.

Specifically, this article explores the spread of the antisemitic hashtag – #JewGoal – from the FIFA video game community into wider online football discourse. The term, ‘Jew goal’, describes a type of football goal, where, in a two-on-one situation with the goalkeeper, a player passes the ball across the goal instead of taking a direct shot. The term originated among the FIFA video game community, where it is a recognized tactic employed while playing the game.1 It implies a level of opportunism or ‘unfairness’, which, without breaking any rules, the player who scores such a goal is seen as capitalizing on the preceding play, or the efforts of the passing player, resulting in the accusation that the scoring player has achieved a ‘cheap’ or ‘easy’ goal. In doing so, the term draws from the racist antisemitic stereotype of the lecherous ‘Jew’ living off the hard-work and effort of others (Marcus, 2015). What remains unique to the term, however, is how it has migrated from video game to online discussions of real football games. In effect, the tactic, while widely recognized within the FIFA community, has since been used to describe similar actions in real-life play. This phenomenon reflects a significant development in the manifestation of antisemitism within online spaces, particularly where the fictional world of video games intersects with real-world sports discourse.

The article goes into details of how social media posts use the term #JewGoal - very often the entire tweet is antisemitic but it pretends it is just being edgy or funny. Examples:

Willian & Torres definitely don’t have foreskin #JewGoal
spurs has absolutely Anne Franked it #JewGoal
Real Madrid to the gas chambers. #jewgoal
I’m about to shove a dreidel up your arse #jewgoal #fifa13 #tweetit
#MUFC equalise with a goal straight outta’ the synagogue. #JewGoal

This kind of humor, whether intentionally or not, ends up mainstreaming antisemitism throughout an entire community.

Buy EoZ's books on Amazon!

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

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)