Saturday, March 01, 2025

03/01 Links: Why Zionism Is Not Colonialism; Hamas stalls Gaza ceasefire talks, betting Israel won't resume fighting; The BBC is too toxic to even recognise its own disgrace

From Ian:

Begin’s unpublished writings to be released on 33rd anniversary of his death
A collection of previously unseen documents, letters and articles written by former Prime Minister Menachem Begin will be made public next week, coinciding with the 33rd anniversary of his death.

Among the handwritten papers is a document outlining Begin’s views on human rights, the need for a constitution and the tension between the judiciary and the legislature.

In 1952, Begin wrote a 65-page paper titled A Personal View, A National View and Basic Principles. Due to austerity measures in the young state of Israel, he drafted it on discarded rolls of paper from a printing press.

“There is no justice without courts,” Begin wrote. “Justices are but flesh and blood and may make mistakes, be bribed or afraid, but the determinative role of the court in our society is not the human weaknesses of any particular judge but the ‘psychological position’ given to that institution and those who sit in judgment.” He argued that both the judiciary and authorities must uphold the courts’ complete independence.

Herzl Makov, CEO of the Menachem Begin Heritage Center, described the documents as a reflection of Begin’s political philosophy and humility. “It is a sharp political analysis that distills Begin’s liberal-national worldview,” he said.

In the writings, Begin also addressed Israel’s territorial aspirations and the necessity of national might. He warned that Israel’s security depended on its power. “Anyone with eyes in his head knows that when we are strong, we will not be attacked by the Arabs, even without signed agreements. And if we are weak, our Arab enemies will rise to destroy us, even if such agreements are forged in diplomacy.”

Begin criticized Israel’s early leaders for conceding historical lands, lamenting that they agreed to establish the state without key biblical sites within its borders. “National leaders were found willing to sign, in the name of the people of Israel, that Jerusalem, Hebron, Bethlehem, Jericho, Nablus and all the good land east of the Jordan would not be ours. Is there a national-historic crime equal to this?”
Growing threat of US isolationism is a danger to the US-Israel alliance
Throughout history, political movements, even those not initially antisemitic, have often seen their most radical factions steer them toward antisemitism.

In recent years, segments of the American left have embraced militant Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, Critical Race Theory (CRT), Marxist ideologies, and policies that exacerbate societal divisions.

This shift has, at times, fostered antisemitic sentiments as observed in rhetoric from certain college campuses, organizations, such as the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), Jewish Voice for Peace, national unions, civil rights groups, and members of the “Squad.”

For instance, a recent report from StopAntisemitism revealed that 72% of Jewish college students in the United States feel unwelcome, with over half having faced antisemitism.

The Republican Party has successfully positioned itself against many of these divisive issues, recognizing their danger to the American way of life and the direct opposition to liberal US values. The new administration has already made strides in addressing these social challenges and affirmed itself as a strong ally of the Jewish people and the State of Israel.

However, the GOP has a blind spot for a Trojan horse gaining momentum within its ranks: a faction of “America First” isolationists who promote policies that, if unchecked, could threaten both America’s global standing and its allies, particularly Israel.

Defining themselves sometimes as “restrainers,” these figures advocate a philosophy of strengthening domestic affairs by rallying against most types of foreign aid and limiting military engagement abroad. While a measure of restraint in foreign policy is healthy, taken to an extreme, it risks weakening America’s global leadership and its commitment to strategic allies. The Jewish community must recognize this emerging threat and its potential to undermine the US-Israel alliance.

The United States cannot afford to completely retreat from the world stage without severe consequences for its own and global security.

History has shown that when America stands back, adversaries quickly fill the vacuum – whether in the Middle East, Europe, Asia, or Latin America. A disengaged America emboldens hostile regimes, undermines global stability, and endangers our interests and allies.

Turning away from Israel, as advocated by the America First isolationists, would send a dangerous message to other US allies: America is no longer a reliable partner.

The isolationist sentiment echoes past missteps, such as the US’s reluctance to confront the growing threats of Nazi Germany in the 1930s. If the US pulls back now, nations that rely on American support may be forced to seek alliances elsewhere, including with adversaries like China, Russia, and Iran.
John Aziz: Why Zionism Is Not Colonialism
The claim that Zionism is a form of colonialism is at the heart of a lot of anti-Zionist narratives. The story goes that white, Western Jews decided to colonise Palestine, and displace the native Palestinian Arab population.

John Aziz's Blog is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

One piece of historical evidence that often gets thrown around in these conversations and seems to have gone mega viral a few times recently is this headline from the New York Times, proclaiming that Zionists intended to colonise Palestine:

The implications of this accusation of colonisation is that colonisation is a horrible thing that must end as the arc of history bends further and further towards justice, to paraphrase Martin Luther King, Jr. In other words, the colonisers must give the land back to the previous owners, and return from whence they came.

But ownership of land, especially in a national sense, is a complex and fraught topic. Yes, it’s true that Palestinian Arabs were living in the land as a majority during the British Mandate between 1917-1947, and the Ottoman Empire during 1517-1917. But there were multiple earlier Jewish polities in the Holy Land across history, with the most recent independent Jewish entity ending with the defeat of the Bar Kokhba revolt in 136 AD, after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 AD following the first Jewish-Roman war.

The result of the Roman colonisation of the land was the enslavement and expulsion of many of the pre-existing indigenous Jewish population, who became scattered across the former Roman empire in Europe and the middle east. Similarly, the ancestors of the Palestinians are not only from later Arab conquerors, and the Romans and Byzantines themselves, but they are also descended in large part from parts of the Jewish population that stayed on the land in spite of Roman rule, and later converted to Christianity or Islam.

This is why Jewish and Palestinian populations are genetically quite closely linked:

The reality of Zionism is that it was the descendants of Jewish people who had previously been displaced from Palestine (or the Land of Israel, or whatever you want to call it) trying to return to the home land of their ancestors.

This is why unlike with classical colonialism, for example the French colonisation of Algeria—which is often cited as an inspiration by Palestinian anti-Zionists—there is no mother country or colonial metropole in the case of Zionism. Colonialism is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as the act of one country acquiring control over another country, occupying it with settlers, and exploiting it economically.

Now some may contest this definition. But by that definition, the New York Times description of Zionism as an act of colonisation was simply not accurate.

The question to ask anyone who claims Zionism is colonialism is what is the mother country?
Reform rabbi: ‘Hamas is the Palestinians,’ two-state solution a delusion
The murder of Shiri Bibas and her two children at the hands of Palestinian terrorists has ended the possibility of a two-state solution, a prominent Reform rabbi declared on Friday.

Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, senior rabbi at New York City’s Stephen Wise Free Synagogue, told congregants in an explosive Shabbat sermon that he had “snapped” over the killings.

“This was the week that finally ended the hope–at least in my lifetime–for a Palestinian state and a Jewish state existing side-by-side,” Hirsch said. “The Palestinians themselves strangled this fragile hope in its crib.”

“Until such time as the Palestinians themselves say they want peaceful coexistence–two states living side-by-side–we must cease deluding ourselves that a two-state solution is available now,” he added.

Gazan terrorists abducted Shiri Bibas, 32, and her two sons Ariel, 4, and Kfir, 9-months-old, from Kibbutz Nir Oz in the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Based on forensic evidence, their captors murdered the two children “with their bare hands” within weeks of the attacks, according to the Israel Defense Forces.

The funeral for the three victims was held on Wednesday after their bodies were returned to Israel as part of Phase 1 of the ceasefire-for-hostages deal between Hamas and Israel.

According to Hirsch, the murders and Hamas’s staging of parade-like ceremonies to crowds of cheering Gazans during the release of emaciated Israeli hostages is an indictment of Palestinian society, which suffers from a “moral miasma and social collapse” and whose national movement fuels “an endless cycle of violent depravity.”


Report: Israel to conquer Gaza with overwhelming force to defeat Hamas
Jerusalem is planning to resume the war in Gaza in four to six weeks in a decisive campaign to wipe out Hamas, The Washington Free Beacon reported on Friday.

The plan is to conquer the entire Gaza Strip in one fell swoop with more than 50,000 soldiers, relocating the civilian population to humanitarian zones, and waging a “ruthless ground campaign” in terrorist-heavy areas that will receive no humanitarian aid, the report suggests.

The campaign is to commence with heavy aerial bombardments, followed by a reduction of the humanitarian aid entering the Strip. Israel Defense Forces divisions would simultaneously enter the Strip in the north, center and south, carving it into three parts.

Citing several current and former Israeli officials with knowledge of the matter, the news outlet reported that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz instructed incoming IDF Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. (res.) Eyal Zamir to develop the plan, which is projected for completion when he steps into office on Thursday.

The general estimates that the war will end in six months or less, per the report.

Brig. Gen. (res.) Amir Avivi, founder of the Israel Defense and Security Forum (IDSF), is quoted as saying that the war this time “is going to be decisive. Israel will use every tool it has to conquer Gaza and eradicate Hamas.”

Col. (res.) Hezi Nehama, who during the war publicly endorsed the Generals’ Plan, calling for the blockade of northern Gaza, said, according to the report, “We’re going to see four to five divisions simultaneously attack in the north, in the center and in the south, to occupy every area and clear out the enemy. It will look different than what we saw in the war until now.”

Professor Kobi Michael, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) at Tel Aviv University, said that outside the humanitarian zones, no external aid will enter Gaza. “This will prevent Hamas from continuing to steal all the humanitarian aid and will increase pressure on the group through the local population,” he said.

The war could be paused if the Hamas leadership agrees to free hostages, or if it agrees to disarm and go into exile, the report adds.

Fifty-nine abductees remain captive in Gaza, at least 35 of them are believed to have died.
Seth Frantzman: Hamas stalls Gaza ceasefire talks, betting Israel won't resume fighting
Hamas made it clear it rejects extending the deal. Israel thinks extension is the best way to get more hostages but not end the war.

Israel’s leadership doesn’t want to end the war because they have promised total victory in Gaza. They also now claim to want to follow a plan proposed by Trump to empty Gaza of some or most of its residents.

The president repeatedly says that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can do whatever he wants. However, Israel has not come up with a clear plan or strategy.

There is no feasible way to empty Gaza of people at the moment. There appears to be no clear plan to remove Hamas, replace it, or “defeat” it as the governing and military power either. Hamas assumes that Israel has no plan.

However, the terror group has seen Israel declare victory in Gaza over the years and leave. It assumes Israel likes talking about victory but not actually achieving it. Hamas knows that in any power vacuum in Gaza, it will return to control.

Can the Trump administration help Israel get a deal? That’s a big question. Hamas wants to end the war and get Israel to leave Rafah. It doesn’t want to extend the deal unless it gets many more prisoners returned. Eventually, Israel may run out of prisoners to release. Hamas released a video of freed hostage Iair Horn and his brother Eitan over the weekend. Eitan is still held in Gaza.

Hamas also knows Israel is at an impasse in negotiations. It knows that the Jewish state has moved the talks to a more political level and that it stalled for time because of claims by Israel’s leadership that they wouldn’t go into phase two.

While Hamas faced some diminishing returns in parading hostages, preferring a quiet release last week as the first stage of the deal came to an end, the terror group also feels it can pressure Israel. At the end of the day, it is playing a high-stakes and dangerous game.

However, the group also knows that in the past, Israel was not very good at negotiating ceasefires. It assumes now that Israel has a ceasefire, it will have a hard time jumping right back into the war. If Hamas can get Ramadan as a ceasefire and not return more hostages, it will have won. If it feels pressured by a return to fighting, it might reconsider.

However, it showed in 2024 that fighting doesn’t necessarily pressure it as long as it holds on to the central camps in Gaza and holds hostages.


Israeli official: Won’ t leave Philadelphi Corridor
The IDF will not pull out of the Philadelphi Corridor that separates the Gaza Strip from Egypt, an Israeli official told reporters on Thursday, saying Jerusalem would refuse to allow Hamas terrorists to regroup and again attack Israeli communities.

“We will not leave the Philadelphi Corridor. We will not allow the Hamas murderers to again roam our borders with pickup trucks and guns, and we will not allow them to rearm through smuggling,” the source said in a statement made to Israeli reporters on condition of anonymity.

This commitment comes despite the ceasefire’s requirement for the Israel Defense Forces to vacate the stretch, some 110-yards wide and 8.7-miles long, along Gaza’s border with Sinai eight days after the first phase of the truce.

During a tour of the route in December, Defense Minister Israel Katz vowed that the IDF will maintain security in the area going forward.

The corridor served as the main smuggling route that enabled Hamas to amass the weapons it used to invade Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, murder some 1,200 people there and abduct another 251.

The IDF took hold of the Philadelphi Corridor, which it had controlled for decades before the 2005 disengagement, during its 15-month-long campaign in Gaza.


US authorizes $2 billion sale of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel
The U.S. State Department announced on Friday that it authorized a $2.04 billion sale of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel.

“The government of Israel has requested to buy 35,529 MK 84 or BLU-117 General Purpose bomb bodies, or a combination of both, and 4,000 I-2000 Penetrator warheads,” the department stated.

“The secretary of state has determined and provided detailed justification that an emergency exists that requires the immediate sale to the government of Israel of the above defense articles and defense services in the national security interests of the United States, thereby waiving the congressional review,” the department stated.

U.S. President Donald Trump announced in January that he was overturning a Biden administration policy of refusing to sell 2,000-pound bombs to Israel over concerns that they contributed to civilian casualties in Gaza.

The weapons were previously at the center of a dispute between former president Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with Biden saying that the bombs were the only type of munition that he had denied to Israel and Netanyahu releasing a video on social media implying that Washington was slow-rolling broad categories of materiel.

“A lot of things that were ordered and paid for by Israel but have not been sent by Biden are now on their way,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Jan. 25.

According to the State Department, delivery of the bombs is expected to begin in 2026.
State Department officials worked against Israel during war, former envoy says
The Biden administration exerted heavy pressure on Israel during the war, repeatedly urging restraint—particularly in responding to Iran’s direct attack—and creating bureaucratic obstacles that delayed essential weapons shipments, outgoing Israeli Ambassador to the US Michael (Mike) Herzog told Israel Hayom on Friday.

In an explosive interview, Herzog revealed that US officials strongly opposed an Israeli counterstrike on Iran, warning that retaliation could escalate into a regional war.

“They told us not to respond after Iran’s first attack. They expected us to contain it,” Herzog told Israel Hayom. “We told them, ‘That’s not how the Middle East works. For us, this is existential.’”

At one point, he recalled, senior Biden administration officials were furious with Israel’s actions, fearing they would be drawn into a broader conflict.

“More than once, they went crazy on me. They yelled, ‘You’ve lost your minds! You’re dragging us into a regional war!’”

Despite US warnings, Israel did strike Iranian targets. But Herzog noted a double standard in Washington’s approach—once the Israeli response was successful in deterring further aggression, American officials tried to take credit for regional stability.

“They initially told us to be careful and not retaliate,” Herzog said. “But after our actions succeeded, they wanted credit, saying, ‘The Middle East is in a better place because we supported Israel.’ The problem is, they didn’t actually support these actions at the time.”
IDF prepares to defend Druze suburb of Damascus against Syrian regime
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz warned the new regime in Damascus on Saturday evening that if it harms the Druze community in Syria, Israel will retaliate.

“We will not allow the terrorist regime of radical Islam in Syria to harm the Druze. We have instructed the IDF to prepare and deliver a harsh and clear warning: If the regime harms the Druze, it will be harmed by us,” the Israeli leaders said in a joint statement.

“We are committed to our Druze brothers in Israel to do everything to prevent harm to their Druze brothers in Syria, and we will take all necessary measures to ensure their safety,” the statement continued.

Netanyahu and Katz instructed the Israeli military to prepare to defend the city of Jaramana, located about 1.8 miles southeast of Damascus, in the Rif Dimashq (“Damascus Suburb”) Governorate on the Ghouta plain.

Jaramana has a mostly Druze and Christian population.


The BBC is too toxic to even recognise its own disgrace
You would have thought that when it came to the BBC’s axed Gaza documentary, the pro-Palestinian luvvie set might have had the grace to sit this one out.

Don’t they always argue that they are absolutely, definitely not supporting Hamas in their protests against Israel’s “genocide”?

Until this week, I didn’t think former footballer Gary Lineker could look any more stupid in his quest to be the salt and vinegar of progressive politics from the comfort of his X feed.

But now he and his 500-strong squad of useful idiots have hit the numpty jackpot after begging the BBC to restore a programme that the national broadcaster itself has admitted contained “serious flaws” with counter terror police now assessing licence fee payers’ cash having been paid to a Hamas linked family.

“We have no plans to broadcast the programme again in its current form or return it to iPlayer,” confirmed a BBC spokesman following a meeting by the BBC Board on Thursday.

An investigation will now be carried out by BBC complaints director Peter Johnson. I’d have preferred an Ofcom probe to the BBC marking its own homework. Had GB News demonstrated this lack of due diligence, the entire channel would probably have been threatened with closure.

It wasn’t just that Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone had featured the son of a Hamas minister as narrator. Nor that a second child featured in the film had been pictured holding a gun and posing beside a Hamas fighter. Or even that a cameraman appeared to have posted tweets celebrating the October 7 massacre.

This wasn’t only a case of the BBC failing to ask basic questions about this documentary, made by production company Hoyo Films. As The Telegraph also revealed, the programme repeatedly mistranslated references to “the Jews” (changing it to “Israel” or “Israeli forces” in the subtitles) and omitted praise of “jihad” (again, translated as “fighting Israeli forces”) during an interview that revered Yahya Sinwar, the deceased Hamas leader.
Stephen Pollard: Imagine if the BBC paid the son of an IRA terrorist to narrate a documentary
Imagine for a moment that, at the height of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, the BBC had broadcast a documentary – sold as being unflinchingly neutral – that was narrated by the son of a senior IRA member.

Imagine that the Corporation had filmed it with the permission and co-operation of the terrorist group – and then paid the IRA member for his family’s participation.

If such behaviour had been exposed, it would have been a catastrophe for the BBC, would likely have led to prosecutions and might even have caused the collapse of the Corporation.

No such film was ever made. But last week the BBC broadcast Gaza: How To Survive A Warzone, and if you replace the words ‘IRA’ with ‘Hamas’, you will understand why the Corporation is facing one of the most serious crises in its history.

Not only did it broadcast a piece of Hamas propaganda without revealing that the narrator is the son of a minister in the Hamas government, it lined the pockets of his family to do so.

After a board meeting on Thursday, the BBC finally admitted the extent of the deception behind the documentary and has now set up a ‘full fact-finding review’.

But it is too little, too late.

On the evidence that has already emerged, it is clear the matter should now be in the hands of the police. Funding a proscribed organisation is a grave offence – and the bar for conviction is set very low.


Muslims must support Jews more, Arab activists say
Dozens of people gathered at Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun, an Orthodox synagogue on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, on Tuesday night to hear from three pro-Israel, Arab activists in an event billed as “voices of change.”

The panel consisted of Fatema Al Harbi, Gulf affairs director of the nonprofit Sharaka; Lebanese-Israeli, Christian activist Jonathan Elkhoury, who fled Lebanon at 9-years-old with his family; and U.S.-based Dalia Ziada, a writer and activist who fled Cairo after Oct. 7, 2023 due to her pro-Israel advocacy.

The Israeli-American Council cosponsored the event with Sharaka and the synagogue.

“In today’s world, where misinformation and divisive narratives dominate discussions about Israel and the Middle East, it is crucial to amplify voices that challenge misconceptions and promote coexistence,” Ayelet Hargash, New York regional director of the council, told JNS.

Hargash told JNS that the event was an opportunity to “provide a platform for courageous individuals, who are breaking barriers, reshaping the discourse and fostering a more nuanced and truthful understanding of the region.”

The three panelists shared a lot of personal anecdotes that inform their activism and the challenges that they have faced in communities that don’t tend to be pro-Israel.

“I grew up hating Israel,” Ziada told the audience.

When she was 18, Ziada saw protesters burning both U.S. and Israeli flags and the Egyptian flag at an anti-Israel gathering in Egypt. “It was so severe,” she said. “I couldn’t tolerate it.” After Oct. 7, it was “impossible not to speak up,” she said.

Ziada told JNS that she has a message “of both hope and warning” for the West and for Jews in particular.

“Hope that you are not in this fight alone. It’s all of our fight,” she said. “But a warning that the best things about Western society are being abused by extremists.”


When Arabs kill Arabs, no one bats an eye: Pro-Israel influencer Luai Ahmed slams UNHRC
Pro-Israel influencer and journalist Luai Ahmed spoke at the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) this week, and accused them of hypocrisy regarding their conduct and report on Israel.

"I ask the UN, the Arab League, and I ask the UN, the Arab League, and everyone who had waving the Palestinian flag since October 7: Where is the flag of Yemen?" Ahmed asked, referring to his home country. "Half a million people have died [there] in the last 10 years. The biggest famine and humanitarian crisis in modern history. Why does no one care when half a million Yemenis die?"

Ahmed also references other countries such as Sudan and Syria where there are ongoing humanitarian crises, accusing the UN body of only acknowledging such crises where Israel could be blamed.

Ahmed, speaking on behalf of the UN Watch NGO, then went on to directly address Volker Turk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, asking, "Why is it that when Arabs kill millions of Arabs, no one bats an eye? Why does your report mention Israel 188 times — yet fails to mention the Islamic Republic in Iran even once?

"How can you speak about the conflict while ignoring the party who armed, trained, and funded the terror proxies — Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis — who have been bombing Israel thousands of times?"

Ahmed then asks Turk why the UNHRC has not acknowledged the Houthi terrorist organization in his home country, who have "spent millions of dollars firing missiles at Israel, instead of feeding [his] starving people?" Ahmed then questions the legitimacy of Qatar sitting in the UN body, when they "host Hamas terror leaders in luxury hotels."


Sasha Troufanov in first message since release: We must return all hostages
Former hostage Alexander Sasha Troufanov spoke publicly for the first time on Saturday evening in a video after being released from Hamas captivity on February 15.

"I still can't process that I'm here and there are still people who haven't returned," he said. "Being held captive is simply an insane psychological game. The thought that stays with you is that, 'if I don't get out in this deal, there probably won't be another deal for me to get out in.'"

Troufanov is seen sitting in the video next to two empty chairs that have posters of his friends Ariel and David Cunio on them. "It's hard for me to think that... that my friends who are sitting here to my right and left, I won't see them again," he said. "This... this is something that overwhelms me a lot right now. That they are here beside me and they're not... they're just pictures and they're not real people, it's something that is difficult for me. And I'm sure it's more difficult for their families."

"Suddenly now I also feel how it feels to be a family whose loved ones are there in Gaza," he continued. "It's something that...I thought when I was there that it wasn't very easy but suddenly it overwhelms me and I realize how difficult it is. And I don't...I don't...I don't wish for anyone to feel this way. Isn't it time to release the people there? The people who are still alive. The people who pray so much to return home."

Troufanov begged the public in his video to not allow feelings of revenge, anger and rage get in the way of unity and brotherhood. "When I talk about bringing back the hostages, I'm talking about everyone, both the living and the deceased. Every family wants closure, and it's not something that you can simply ignore. We have to fight for everyone the same way!"


Hamas releases footage of Eitan Horn in captivity
The Hamas terrorist organization released on Saturday evening footage of Eitan Horn, an Israeli abducted during the Oct. 7, 2023, Gazan invasion of the northwestern Negev and still held captive in the Strip.

The video was apparently filmed a short while before Eitan, now aged 38, was separated from his brother Yair, who was released from captivity on Feb. 15.

The brothers were shown in the footage holding each other and bursting in tears. Eitan Horn speaks to the camera, pleading with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to sign an agreement on the second phase of the ceasefire, so he can be freed as well.

The Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement, “The Hamas terrorist organization has, this evening, disseminated another cruel propaganda video in which our hostages are forced to engage in psychological warfare.

“Israel will not be deterred by Hamas propaganda. We will continue to act relentlessly for the return of all of our hostages and until all objectives of the war are met,” the statement concludes.

The Horn family, authorizing the publication of the video, said in a statement: “It breaks our heart to see Eitan in this difficult situation, saying goodbye to his brother Yair, who is being freed while Eitan remains held in Hamas’s hell for 512 days now.”

It continues, “You can see the despair and fear in Eitan’s eyes. Since Yair returned to us, he hasn’t stopped thinking about and working for Eitan, and all the other hostages he met in captivity who are still there. We demand from the decision-makers: Look Eitan in the eyes. Don’t end the agreement that has already brought dozens of hostages back to us. They are running out of time! Bring everyone home, now, in all at once.”

At least three other hostages are seen in captivity with Eitan and Yair Horn, two of whom have their faces blurred.


Hostage's father identifies son, blurred in video, by tattoo
Hamas published a propaganda video Saturday showing Iair Horn, 46, who was released from captivity two weeks ago, saying goodbye to his younger brother Eitan, 38, who is still being held in the Gaza Strip.

After approving the publication of the video, the family of the captive demanded the government continue the hostage-ceasefire deal, the first phase of which is scheduled to end at midnight Saturday. Hamas has rejected an Israeli proposal to extend the first phase, insisting that the deal proceed to stage two, which Israel has largely refused to negotiate for the past month.

The video begins with five hostages sitting on the floor — the Horn brothers, Sagui Dekel-Chen, and two more hostages whose faces Hamas blurred in the video — sitting in a room, preparing to eat. The father of hostage Nimrod Cohen later identified his son as one of the other hostages by the tattoo on his forearm.

“He got the tattoo a few days before he was kidnapped,” Yehuda Cohen told the Ynet news site. “I’m disappointed that we don’t see Nimrod’s face because I haven’t seen him in a year and a half, but these are Hamas’s games.”


Jonathan Tobin: Don’t mourn the demise of corporate media gatekeepers
It’s just the latest in a long list of freakouts by the liberal inside-the-Beltway establishment about the way the Trump 2.0 administration is shaking up Washington. The decision to change the composition of the White House press pool, however, seems to hit the D.C. elites where it really hurts.

For several decades, the White House Correspondents Association (WHCA) has jealously guarded its privilege to determine which outlets get the right to work in the executive mansion and sit in the briefing room when press conferences are held and to be recognized to ask questions. So, it’s hardly surprising that this group—whose complaints are amplified by the hysterical coverage of the issue in the corporate mainstream publications and websites where its members work—is treating this measure as if it is the end of the free press, if not the world.

That it is nothing of the kind is only partly why this story says a lot more about the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of the establishment press than it does about the foibles and willingness of President Donald Trump and his team to get even with their antagonists. What is going on here is not just a battle between a new administration clearly spoiling for a fight with a liberal press that is hopelessly biased against Trump and will do anything it can to discredit him.

An inflection point
It is also an inflection point in which legacy outlets whose hegemonic dominance of journalism ended long ago are being forced to recognize just that. They are being put on notice that their control of the flow of news at places like the White House will no longer be indulged. What’s more, their glaringly obvious tilt to the left that has grown greater with every passing year, especially since Trump began discomfiting the D.C. uniparty, is also a factor here. It has caused them not just to be challenged by those who disagree with their prejudicial coverage but rendered them essentially irrelevant to a 2024 presidential election, whose discourse was largely conducted via podcasts and niche publications, and not the daily newspapers, broadcast and cable-TV news channels.

This is important not just because it affects the coverage of Trump’s efforts to reform an unelected and heretofore unaccountable administrative state of federal bureaucrats who have more power than most citizens understand. Trump’s putting these D.C. elites in their place should also help draw similar conclusions about the way the same establishment outlets have covered Israel and its war against Hamas and other Palestinian terrorists since the terror attacks that killed 1,200 people on Oct. 7, 2023.

In the same way, that the members of the WHCA have acted as cheerleaders for the anti-Trump “resistance” since January 2017, much of the media establishment has largely acted as stenographers for Hamas, reporting their lies and propaganda about their genocidal war on the Jewish state as if they were facts. That’s why those who are sick and tired of the corporate press’s bad reporting and twisted analysis of Israel’s struggle against Islamist terror should be cheering the way the administration is seeking to undermine their power and open up the White House to a broad array of outlets.
Ex-MSNBC host Joy Reid went on antisemitic ‘rant’ about COVID, former staffer claims
Former MSNBC host Joy Reid went “on a vile antisemitic rant,” in which she blamed Orthodox Jews for the spread of COVID-19 in New York City, a former production assistant at the network claims.

In the summer of 2020, the lefty former “TheReidOut” host allegedly ripped Orthodox Jews, saying they “only care about themselves” and are “in their own bubble,” and accused the group of reckless behavior during the opandemic, according to the PA.

The ex-PA, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said she is speaking out now that Reid’s been axed because “people should know what her character is.”

“They’re the reason why COVID is spreading across New York,” the former staffer claimed Reid said unchallenged during a morning conference call. “They don’t care about COVID or spreading it to others.”

“I was shocked she called out a group and generalized them,” said the ex-PA, who is Jewish, who said it was even more shocking that the “other people on the call went along with it as if it’s a normal thing to say.”

About 20 people from the production team were on the call, she recalled.

“No one called her out [saying] ‘Maybe we shouldn’t generalize.’ Imagine if you said that about any other group of people – even if it were true – saying that any other group didn’t care about COVID?

“I remember feeling shocked – shocked by her ignorance and how antisemitic it sounded.”

The source, who felt too “intimidated” as a young staffer to speak out at the meeting, sent a Slack message later that day to her boss, then-senior producer Lorena Ruiz.


Iran's Regime: Why Diplomacy and Deals Always Fail
The Islamic of Republic of Iran is a revolutionary state, deeply committed to an ideological mission that transcends conventional diplomacy. Its very core identity is rooted in anti-Americanism, anti-Semitism, and the goal of exporting its revolutionary ideals worldwide.

This ideological foundation is not just some negotiable policy but an unshakable pillar of the regime's existence. If the Islamic Republic were to abandon these principles, it would not merely be modifying its foreign policy — it would be dismantling its own identity. The regime cannot and will not abandon its hostility toward the United States and Israel; doing so would strip it of the very ideology that justifies its rule.

The Western dream has been that economic benefits, integration into the global system, and negotiations could push Iran to abandon its radical policies and support for terrorist groups. Iran, however, has mostly used negotiations as a tool to buy time, secure economic relief, then continue its military buildup. Iran's regime has never wavered from its core mission, which is to spread its revolutionary Islamist ideology and challenge the global order that it views as corrupt and dominated by the West.

Iran's constitution explicitly enshrines its mission to export its revolution abroad. Article 11 states that the government "considers the continuation of the Islamic Revolution at home and abroad as its duty." Article 154 states that the Islamic Republic "supports the just struggles of the oppressed against the arrogant everywhere in the world." This language is not mere rhetoric; it is the foundation upon which the entire state apparatus operates.

The regime's founding mullah, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, made clear that the Islamic Republic's ultimate goal is to unite the Muslim world under its own Islamist governance: "We shall export our revolution to the whole world. Until the cry 'There is no god but Allah' resounds over the whole world, there will be struggle." This ideology is the regime's very essence. To abandon it would mean abandoning the Islamic Republic itself. That is why Iran's rulers will never truly compromise, regardless of how many sanctions are lifted or how many agreements are signed.

The world ignored similar signs from Nazi Germany in the 1930s, perhaps in the wish that appeasement would prevent a greater catastrophe. We know how that ended. Iran's current regime, sadly, will never be a friend to the United States, to Israel, or to the free world -- no matter what it is given.
Controversial Muslim charity accused of links to Hamas settles lawsuit rather than disclosing sources of funding
A Washington-based Muslim nonprofit, which is one of the largest operating across the US, agreed this week to settle a case brought by a former board member and employee rather than open its books to reveal sources of foreign funding, The Post has learned.

Evidence in past court proceedings has shown links between The Council on American-Islamic Relations Foundation Inc. and both Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.

CAIR Inc. settled with Lori Saroya Thursday, months after US Magistrate Judge David Schultz ruled any assets owned by the group are all within the “scope of permissible discovery” as part of the former Minnesota chapter leader’s lawsuit against the controversial Muslim rights group.

Saroya filed her federal defamation complaint against CAIR last year after the group dropped a lawsuit against her, which accused her of embarking on a “defamation campaign” against the organization.

Call for federal probe
Lawmakers are demanding a federal investigation into the nonprofit, which took in more than $5.3 million in contributions and grants in 2022, the last year for which public filings are available.

“CAIR’s leadership has a long history of spewing vile antisemitism and anti-Zionist rhetoric, including openly praising the Hamas terrorists that brutally attacked Israel, murdering, raping, and kidnapping more than 1,200 people on October. 7 [2023],” said Josh Gottheimer, a Democratic Congressman from New Jersey.

Referring to court proceedings which showed the links, he added: “The allegations that CAIR receives funding from Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, if true, are deeply concerning and require an immediate investigation.”

CAIR, which was founded in 1993, was linked to Hamas in 2008 when US authorities successfully prosecuted five leaders at the Holy Land Foundation For Relief and Development, a now-defunct Texas-based nonprofit, for giving more than $12 million from the US to the terror group.
Illinois man convicted in murder of Muslim boy, wounding of his mother
An Illinois landlord accused of fatally stabbing a 6-year-old boy and attacking his mother because of their Muslim faith in 2023 was convicted of all eight charges, including first-degree murder Friday.

In Joliet, Ill., a jury deliberated for less than two hours and found Joseph Czuba, 73, guilty of the murder charge, attempted murder, aggravated battery and hate crimes. Czuba did not testify at his trial.

Wadee Alfayoumi's father, Odai, spoke to the media after the verdict.

"I don't know if I should be pleased or upset, if I should be crying or laughing," he said through a translator during a press briefing with the Chicago office of the Council of American-Islamic Relations, the U.S.'s largest Muslim civil rights organization. "People are telling me to smile. Maybe if I were one of you, I would be smiling. But I'm the father of the child, and I've lost the child."

On Oct. 14, 2023, Wadee Alfayoumi was fatally stabbed 26 times, and his mother, Hanan Shaheen, survived after being stabbed more than 12 times at their home in Plainfield Township, about 40 miles southwest of downtown Chicago.

They rented two rooms from Czuba and his then-wife, Mary Connor, 64. They were married for 30 years.

Hanan Shaheen, 33, testified that she didn't have any issues with Czuba until after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

She said the couple were aware that she is Muslim and of Palestinian descent before they agreed to rent the rooms two years earlier.

Sheehan and Mary Connor, who also testified, said he began speaking hatefully about Muslims. Shaheen said Czuba told her "your people" are killing Jewish people and babies in Israel, that Muslims were not welcome in his home and that she needed to move out.

"I told him, 'Pray for peace,'" Shaheen testified.


Don’t give A-listers an Oscars platform to promote terror against Jews
Here we go again. The Academy Awards are upon us, and antisemites are trying to take over a beloved evening.

On the very day of the release of the Bibas family members — who were murdered by Hamas in cold blood in Gaza — Artists4Ceasefire sent a letter encouraging attendees to wear a pin featuring a bloody hand to the Oscars.

What is happening here?

The pin is a slap in the face to Jews, and other terror victims, across the globe.

It symbolizes the violence of the Second Intifada, in which Palestinian terrorists murdered Jews in the West Bank with their bare hands.

During that time, one of the terrorists looked out a window and held his bloodied hands up high in front of a cheering crowd after brutally murdering two Israelis.

The Hollywood A-Listers’ claim the hand’s “red background [is] to symbolize the urgency of the call to save lives. The orange hand conveys the beautiful community of people from all backgrounds that have come together in support of centering our shared humanity. The heart being cradled in the center of the hand is an invitation for us to lead with our hearts, always, to lead with love.”

Sure. It’s all about “love” and “shared humanity.”

How utterly perverse: Either they’re shockingly ignorant (particularly for people who pretend to be enlightened) or they’re intentionally closing their eyes to the figure’s actual savage origins.

After all, there are plenty of other symbols this movement could use to express their desire for love, peace and harmony (a dove? a simple heart?).

But their choice of the bloody hand effectively endorses Arab terror and barbarism against Jews.

Remember, this is the same group of people who claim they want a permanent cease-fire and hostage release but are radio silent about the fact that the Bibas boys’ mother — our beloved Shiri — did not come back with her murdered children.

They stayed mum as Hamas returned a different, unknown body, and took its sweet time returning her back to Israel.
Gal Gadot, pro-Palestinian co-star to present at Oscars
Israel will have patriotic representation at the Oscars this year, but from the presenter’s podium: Gal Gadot will join the lineup of award presenters at Hollywood’s most glamorous cinematic event of the year, scheduled for March 2, marking the ceremony’s 97th iteration.

While the specific award Gadot will present remains undisclosed, her inclusion represents a significant honor. Among other newly announced presenters are Hollywood heavyweights Harrison Ford, Samuel L. Jackson, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Andrew Garfield, Margaret Qualley, and notably Rachel Zegler, who stars alongside Gadot in Disney’s live-action adaptation of “Snow White” premiering later this month (the pairing of these two actresses at the ceremony hardly seems coincidental). Zegler has posted pro-Palestinian tweets on X.

These stars will join previously announced presenters including Ben Stiller, Selena Gomez, Oprah Winfrey, Willem Dafoe and Ana de Armas, with Conan O’Brien hosting the evening and Nick Offerman serving as the ceremony’s announcer.

The announcement of Gadot’s participation comes shortly after The Brigade—a pro-Israel organization active in Hollywood—declared it would not remain passive if ceremony attendees wear the red hand pin associated with the pro-Palestinian initiative Artists4ceasefire, which critics have linked to imagery reminiscent of the blood-stained hands of those who perpetrated the Ramallah lynching in 2000.
John Podhoretz: REVIEW: ‘The Brutalist’
The project goes awry several times, and in the course of it, we see Van Buren’s generosity and cruelty, his determination and his fickleness, and what it’s like to be the artist at the mercy of an inconstant benefactor. Along the way, Laszlo’s wife and niece make it to America and dislike the life here. Throughout the movie, we see the creation of the state of Israel and hear it discussed; Laszlo’s niece and her husband decide they are going to move there because life in America is intolerable in its capitalist rapacity and soullessness.

"This may be the most Zionist movie ever made," a producer friend and huge admirer of The Brutalist said to me, and indeed, it does make the case for the need for a Jewish homeland and place of refuge at a remarkable time. But this is the first and largest of Corbet’s wild mistakes and misrepresentations of America. I do not know of a single case of a Holocaust survivor who came to America who made aliyah to Israel because they found America unbearable. Until about 18 months ago, when anti-Semitism exploded outward onto our streets and college campuses, America was a dream come true for Jews and Jewish refugees, Holocaust survivors among them. Certainly, people moved to Israel to join in its grand project, but they were not fleeing America. Mid-century Jews did not need to flee America. There had never been a country as kind to Jews. Ever. And survivors, who had been through the worst of the worst, knew that too.

But the Toths, in Corbet’s bad fictional history, do need to leave America because America literally manhandles and literally rapes them.

The manhandling is done by Van Buren’s son, who ragefully drags Mrs. Toth out of her wheelchair (she is largely unable to walk due to osteoporosis created by wartime starvation) and through his mansion. The raping is done by Van Buren, who gets drunk in Italy with Laszlo, announces Laszlo is weak, hurls him to the ground down a silent alley, and mounts him.

So the message of The Brutalist is that America, seemingly welcoming and kind to those who had endured the world’s greatest evil, was simply wearing a benign face. It was (and maybe is) just as evil as Nazi Germany, although perhaps only on a case-by-case basis.

Corbet’s achievement is undeniable. So is the loathsomeness of his worldview. The Brutalist is an important movie because it makes the case that cinema is still worth arguing over. But it should lose the argument.
Why ‘The Brutalist’ Is Brutal to Watch
The Brutalist, to the extent that such a work of cinema can be compared to those works of architecture, shares more its own spirit of tourism: aggrandizing intimations of importance, a not unpleasing sensation of dutiful boredom, a gratifying but undemanding proximity to something epic yet generic. Tóth, though very loosely based on some real historical figures, is mostly a type with no especially evident personhood where we would best seek it in an architect—his architecture—and no particular personality but for haplessness and greatness. “We wanted to talk about these bigger concepts,” screenwriter Fastvold told The New York Times, “and if you’re locked into a real person, then it’s harder to do because you’re married to what happened to them versus just looking at this period in time and the relationship between postwar psychology and postwar architecture.” But as any screenwriting handbook will tell you (as well as “Save the Cat”), specificity is the soul of story. Only with the personal and particular can you tell a universal story. Only with the little can you assemble the big. If there is any redemptive usefulness in art—even in mere architecture, which must also keep the rain out—it is perhaps in this.

What gives The Brutalist its vague shape of a tale of redemption, of a story about the progressive integration of extraordinary experience into ordinary life, is mostly all that clapping in Venice. Plus the music. But by then, mostly what we’ve seen in the movie is Tóth just being ever more hazardous and getting ever more hurt—with a strange consistency that may remind some viewers of the genre of horror cinema called torture porn. This genre—Saw, Hostel—was defined in 2006 by film critic David Edelstein and is today generally understood significantly to have been a cultural response to the actual torture to which Americans were becoming witness in the so-called “war on terror,” including the American Abu Ghraib version of “enhanced interrogation” and waterboarding. This all featured in the Fox television show 24, in which—also in 2006—Brady Corbet starred as Derek Huxley, a teen to whom the series’ brutal hero Jack Bauer, in the manly person of Kiefer Sutherland, becomes a father figure. Young Derek gets much assaulted, kidnapped, and threatened with death, courtesy of chaotic evil Russians Vladimir Bierko and Anton Beresch. Homicides and suicides are regularly threatened. Bauer interrogates and tortures a bad guy by means of a knife to the eyeball. After 24 hours, all’s well that ends well. If the dramatic staging of torture as entertainment has any redeeming feature, it may be that viewers can process their own preceding and enduring traumas by practicing on the fake ones they see in the movies—once they leave.

What’s amazing about brutalist architecture—why I wish there had been some in a movie that bears the movement’s name—is that it is precisely an architecture of recovery and redemption and regeneration. Forged not in war but in the immediate postwar, it was an architecture of hard times and high hopes—which by its clear-eyed refusal to make the world pretty left room for the possibility that it could still become beautiful. Which is probably why today, when we mostly mediate our moods and communicate our culture through pretty pictures, it’s not especially popular.

Just 20 miles from Doylestown, Pennsylvania, in suburban Trenton, New Jersey, is the Jewish Community Center of the Delaware Valley, built in 1955. It’s an event space and changing rooms for swimming pools, designed by that towering Philadelphia architect and brutalist Louis Kahn, with his sometime partner in life and work, the mathematician and designer Anne Tyng. Devoid of petty grandeur, it’s a low composition of simple cement block stone walls topped by heavy timber and shingled pyramidal roofs, whose peaks are truncated by open skylights. Sometimes I think it’s the best building in America. The courtyards and roofs appear so massive from the outside and confer exceptional gravity. And yet from within there’s nothing but lightness and the play of light. Solemnity at a distance yields to levity up close. Because the roofs are shifted and opened away from the walls, you always feel held but never confined. Because the public courtyards are the same dimensions as the private courtyards that serve as showers and changing rooms, there are no surprises, and onstage and backstage are of equal dignity. This is brutalism at its earliest best. Many of the users of this community center may have earlier experienced such places as Buchenwald and Dachau. I think now about how the sensitive geometry of this place, made for the dignity and agency of the body, must have been an architecture of healing—not an involuntary revisitation by the past, but a way to finally come home into the present. It has nothing to do with the mere greatness in which The Brutalist has such relentless fascination and everything to do, in every sense of the word, with goodness.
‘The Brutalist’ is a pretentious, overlong Oscar-nominated mess
Finally arriving at the epilogue
WHEN THE film eventually arrives at its epilogue, there is a real-looking sequence set at the Venice Biennale in 1980, where Zsófia gives a talk about her uncle’s accomplishments. She says he always told her, “It’s not the journey, it’s the destination,” and that architecture is not about anything, and then reveals that it was Buchenwald that inspired László’s creations.

In that case, isn’t his architecture about Buchenwald? Meanwhile, László is slumped in his wheelchair, as you will likely be slumped in your seat if you make it to this point.

Many historians and architects have criticized the film, saying that successful European architects were celebrated in the US after the war. But that’s only one of the problems.

During the many hours I sat watching it, I kept wondering: Why did the director want to tell this particular fictional story? The more that Harrison reminded me of Donald Trump, the more I thought the movie was a parable of American philistinism and greed. That’s a valid premise for a movie but perhaps the point could be made just as well in a movie that was about 90 minutes shorter.

Brody is good but may be robbed of his Best Actor Oscar, the one award this movie deserves to win, because of a controversy over whether the director used AI to make his Hungarian accent sound better.

While I wouldn’t say that the rapturous critical reception of this movie is a sign of the world’s intellectual decay – because that would be going a little too far – I do find it a great mystery why so many claim to have enjoyed this pretentious mess.

If anyone is hopelessly enslaved these days, it’s movie audiences in search of a decent, serious movie they can see without suffering.




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

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