Tuesday, March 25, 2025

03/25 Links Pt1: Hamas's Oct. 7 Attack Was the Greatest Palestinian Strategic Blunder since the Rejection of the UN Partition Plan; UN agencies won’t confirm ‘famine’ occurred

From Ian:

Walter Russell Mead: Hamas's Oct. 7 Attack Was the Greatest Palestinian Strategic Blunder since the Rejection of the UN Partition Resolution in 1947
With so much going on in the Middle East, it's more vital than ever to distinguish between the deep trends bringing lasting change to the region and the dramatic but ultimately less important events that often dominate the headlines.

Among the major developments, we can count the strategic defeat of Iran's "Axis of Resistance," Russia's loss of influence following the fall of Bashar al-Assad, Turkey's increasing engagement in Middle East politics, and the continuing decline of Egypt as a regional force. Power in the region has passed to Persian Gulf states as Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE jostle for influence. Israel is emerging from its war with Iran and its proxies more powerful and less isolated than before. Not since the aftermath of the Israeli War of Independence have the Palestinians been this weak or this divided. Yet Israel's worst nightmare, the Iranian nuclear program, is if anything becoming a greater danger.

Both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority have come to the end of the road. Hamas's Oct. 7 attack on Israel was the greatest strategic blunder by Palestinian leaders since the rejection of the UN partition resolution in 1947. The Oct. 7 war has, thus far, brought Gaza's population nothing but misery and death. Civilians are caught between relentless Israeli attacks and fanatical Hamas terrorists who hide military facilities in hospitals and schools.

President Trump's interest in "relocating" Palestinians from Gaza is an important break. Given disenchantment with their political leaders and despair over the prospects of economic development, more Palestinians may choose to check out of the conflict and seek better lives elsewhere.

The biggest question in the Middle East today involves the future of America's role. Everyone wants American support; all fear the consequences if the American president sides with their rivals. President Trump wants what every American president has wanted since World War II: a quiet Middle East that pumps oil and gas and buys American goods (including arms) without entangling the U.S. in more wars.
Dov Lieber: Netanyahu and Top Aides Think Israel Must Beat Hamas on the Battlefield
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his national-security team are planning a major ground offensive in Gaza in the belief that capturing and holding swaths of territory will allow them to finally defeat Hamas, according to people familiar with the government's thinking.

Netanyahu and top aides argue that Hamas must be beaten on the battlefield before any political solution for Gaza can be advanced.

They believe that last year's military defeat of Hizbullah in Lebanon and the Trump administration's willingness to back a renewed offensive against Hamas give them more latitude to fight.
No, this isn’t the fall of democracy in Israel
The former Israeli chief justice Aharon Barak recently warned that the country could be headed toward civil war due to Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to fire the head of the Shin Bet, and the opposition thereto. To Amichai Attali, such comments are both “out of touch with reality” and irresponsible—as are those of Barak’s political opponents:

Yes, there is tension and stress, but there is also the unique Israeli sense of solidarity. Who exactly would fight in this so-called civil war? Try finding a single battalion or military unit willing to go out and kill their own brothers and sisters—you won’t. They don’t exist. About 7 percent of the population represents the extremes of the political spectrum, making the most noise. But if we don’t come to our senses, that number might grow.

And what about you, leader of [the leftwing party] The Democrats and former deputy IDF chief, Yair Golan? You wrote that the soldiers fighting Hamas in Gaza are pawns in Netanyahu’s political survival game. Really? Is that what the tens of thousands of soldiers on the front lines need to hear? Or their mothers back home? Do you honestly believe Netanyahu would sacrifice hostages just to stay in power? Is that what the families of those hostages need right now?

Israeli democracy will not collapse if Netanyahu fires the head of the Shin Bet—so long as it’s done legally. Nor will it fall because demonstrators fill the streets to protest. They are not destroying democracy, nor are they terrorists working for Hamas.


After talk for year-and-a-half of Gaza ‘famine,’ UN agencies won’t confirm one occurred
As Israel blocks entry of certain goods into Gaza to pressure Hamas to free the remaining hostages, some critics of the Jewish state are reviving the narrative that Jerusalem is deliberately starving Gazans to the point of famine.

Cindy McCain, the widow of former senator John McCain and executive director of the United Nations World Food Programme, said in May 2024 that northern Gaza had entered “full-blown famine.” Two months prior, Matthew Hollingworth, the U.N. agency’s interim director for the Palestinian territories, proclaimed “famine is a reality” in the Strip.

Some two months before that, Martin Griffiths, then the U.N. emergency relief chief, said that the Israel-Hamas war brought famine to Gaza with “such incredible speed.” He added that the “great majority” of 400,000 Gazans deemed at the time by U.N. agencies to be at risk of starvation “are actually in famine, not just at risk of famine.”

JNS has sought comment repeatedly from U.N. agencies, after the announced January ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, about whether the global body has any evidence that famine occurred in Gaza.

The office of António Guterres, the U.N. secretary-general, and the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the World Food Programme declined multiple requests for comment on whether they could confirm that there was famine in Gaza.

“Hamas has a documented track record of looting humanitarian aid sent by Israel to Gaza, and using that aid to sustain its terror apparatus,” Jonathan Harounoff, international spokesperson for Israel’s U.N. mission, told JNS.

“The only famine in Gaza relates to the Israeli hostages, who have been—and are being—starved and tortured while in brutal captivity,” Harounoff told JNS.

Allegations of famine, coupled with accusations that Israel employed a policy of deliberate starvation, have had enormous diplomatic, legal and societal repercussions.

Karim Khan, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, listed “starvation of civilians as a method of warfare” atop his charges when he filed for arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, then the defense minister.

The U.N.-aligned Integrated Food Security Phase Classification analyses, through which the United Nations was attributing claims of famine, were repeatedly called into question, including by the IPC’s own Famine Review Committee. The latter issued a report assailing the IPC’s methodology and noting severe undercounting of food deliveries to Gaza.


Khaled Abu Toameh: No Difference Between Hamas 'Politicians' And Terrorists
"They [Hamas] need to demilitarize, and then they might be politically involved in Gaza." —US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff, interview with Tucker Carlson, March 21, 2025.

"I thought we had an acceptable deal. I even thought we had an approval from Hamas. Maybe that's just me getting duped." — Steve Witkoff, about a ceasefire extension he thought he had just finished negotiating, Fox News, March 23, 2023.

Duped is putting it mildly. Witkoff, who doubtless has the best intentions, is sadly proving the perfect mark.

Hamas is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization that needs to be designated by the US as a terrorist group. Hamas is Muslim Brotherhood, and Muslim Brotherhood is Hamas.

[Hamas's] politicians devise the strategy and set the goals, while its armed wing is entrusted with following them. The political leadership of Hamas ruled that Israel must be eliminated, and the group's military wing has carried out countless terrorist attacks to achieve that goal.

The political leaders need the military wing to control the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip, as they have been doing since their violent coup there in 2007.

Hamas, which has brought death and destruction upon both Israelis and Palestinians, has no right to exist, either as a political or a military entity. Did it ever occur to anyone to allow the political leaders of ISIS or Al-Qaeda to play any role in Syria and Iraq?

If Hamas is permitted to continue its political activities in the Gaza Strip, it will comfortably continue its jihad against Israel. The group's political leaders will undoubtedly continue to call – in Arabic -- for the annihilation of Israel and encourage Palestinians to launch terrorist attacks against it.

Witkoff's talk about a possible political role for Hamas is dangerous, mainly because it implies that the US continues to view the terror group as a legitimate player in the Palestinian arena. If the US envoy wants to see stability and security in the Middle East, he must insist on the complete and permanent removal of Hamas – all of its "wings." Destroying "much" of Hamas's military capabilities or disarming it is totally worthless.


The unbearable lightness of Rory Stewart and Alistair Campbell
Fresh from the awkwardness of lavishing podcast airtime on Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, a reformed jihadi who turned out — quelle surprise! — not to have been reformed at all, Rory Stewart and Alistair Campbell have outdone their auto-debasement by interviewing arch-Israelophobe Francesca Albanese.

This was an unlikely pairing. After all, Campbell helped take Britain into an illegal war in Iraq based on dubious evidence, while Stewart, who also supported the invasion, was a card-carrying member of the occupation, having been appointed colonial governor of an Iraqi province at the age of 30. Occupation, Francesca! Occupation! I haven’t had a moment to run this past her personally, but I’d hazard a guess that the ultra-Arabist United Nations Special Rapporteur may in retrospect regard that little act of Western imperialism in a rather dim light. Yet here they were, talking about Israel; that tends to bring people together.

Entirely predictably, Albanese was granted the sort of soft-soap treatment that her unbearable hosts would themselves have appreciated were they ever to be confronted with the record of Britain’s involvement in that spot of bother in Iraq a while back (which both of them have since tried to play down).

First up, the former Labour spin doctor lobbed an easy ball into Albanese’s path. “You’ve been under a lot of attack from people accusing you of being antisemitic,” Campbell crooned. “So, I wanted to give you an opportunity to talk a little bit about your empathy for Israelis [and] your understanding of their position, before we return to what you want to talk about, which is your empathy for Palestinians and for Gaza.”

Albanese knocked it out of the park. Empathy for the Jews? To hell with that. It was “shocking”, she said, that “the word antisemitism is no longer what it was for me three years ago”. The allegations made her “sick in her stomach”, she added — at which we all felt deep sympathy — before claiming that the claims had been “weaponised” against her in recent months.

“Antisemitism is hatred or discrimination against Jewish people because they are Jewish,” she informed us. “Now, the allegations of antisemitism against me have nothing to do with [that]… I’m accused of being an antisemite because I criticise Israel.”

Sure sure. Shall we take a little look at the evidence? America, she remarked in 2014, had been “subjugated by the Jewish lobby”. Amid a storm of outrage she apologised, but this set the tone for much of her perspective since.

On October 7, she posted that “today’s violence must be put in context”. (I can’t recall her ever making the same point about the IDF’s assault on Hamas, which she has repeatedly condemned, quite acontextually, as a “genocide”.) She also posted, “the victims of 7/10 were not killed because of their Judaism, but in reaction to Israel's oppression” and expressed doubt about the findings of a landmark UN report which found evidence of Hamas’s sexual violence committed on October 7. Reader, the woman works for the UN.


Fox News Accuses Israel of Killing 'Two Palestinian Journalists.' Both Have Terror Affiliations.
Fox News reporter Trey Yingst took to the airwaves to accuse Israel of killing "two Palestinian journalists, Mohammed Mansour and Hossam Shabat." Mansour worked for the terror organization Palestinian Islamic Jihad's media network, Filastin Al-Youm, while Israeli intelligence released months ago showing that Shabat served as a sniper in a Hamas battalion, none of which Yingst disclosed.

Yingst, Fox's chief foreign correspondent, leveled the charge during a Monday morning appearance on America's Newsroom. He referenced "new developments out of Gaza today, where two Palestinian journalists, Mohammed Mansour and Hossam Shabat, were killed by the Israelis."

"Last year, 124 journalists were killed around the world, two-thirds of them in Gaza," Yingst concluded. "More to come, unfortunately," host Bill Hemmer responded.

Shabat's Hamas affiliations have long been known. In September, Egyptian-British researcher Khaled Hassan unearthed Shabat's social media posts from Oct. 7, 2023. In them, Shabat shared celebratory captions and emojis alongside photos of Hamas terrorists infiltrating Israel and returning to Gaza. "All of Beit Hanon is at the garage, receiving the kidnapped soldiers," he wrote in one message, referencing the Israeli hostages that included a 9-month-old baby. "The heroes are in Beit Hanon," he wrote alongside a photo of the returning terrorists.

One month later, Israel released declassified intelligence that originated from documents discovered in the Gaza Strip during military operations. The documents revealed that six Al Jazeera journalists, including Shabat, were actually terrorists affiliated with Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The intelligence included Arab-language documents that show terrorist training courses, salary records, and personnel tables. They listed Shabat as a sniper in Hamas's Beit Hanoun Battalion.

Fox's LiveNow network covered the documents under the headline, "Israel-Hamas war: IDF exposes Al Jazeera journalists as Hamas terrorists."

"I wanted to share this breaking news with you as well, this is from the Israel Defense Forces: 'Exposed: Six Al Jazeera journalists have been exposed as Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists,'" said host Stephanie Coueignoux.


Huckabee Stands Up to Hollering Protesters, Senator Van Hollen
Former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas defended his record and endured hollering protesters from the gallery, as well as hostile questions from Sen. Chris van Hollen (D-MD), during his confirmation hearing Tuesday for the post of U.S. Ambassador to Israel.

Huckabee, the first evangelical Christian nominated for the role, sat patiently as he was interrupted multiple times, leading the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to demand order.

Van Hollen, who has emerged as one of the most anti-Israel members of the Senate, offered somewhat more articulate but no less implacable objections to Huckabee’s nomination. He questioned the nominee on his past statements about the disputed territories of Judea and Samaria (the “West Bank”), which Huckabee has said belong to Israel.

Huckabee clarified that he was referring to the Jewish right to the land according to the Bible, not U.S. policy. He also stressed that he would follow the Trump administration’s policy, and not his own views.

Van Hollen pressed Huckabee on whether Palestinians would have the right to vote if Israel annexed the territory. Huckabee did not say, except to say that they would live freely, and that they would not be removed from the land.

Huckabee stressed that President Trump was hoping to expand on the Abraham Accords in seeking peace in the Middle East.


Palestinian co-director of Oscar-winning documentary arrested for stoning security forces
Israeli forces on Monday night arrested Palestinian filmmaker Hamdan Balal on suspicion of throwing stones at security forces during violent clashes near Susya in Judea, according to Hebrew media reports.

Balal, co-director of the Oscar-winning documentary “No Other Land,” was among three Palestinians detained, along with an Israeli citizen involved in the confrontation.

The Israel Defense Forces reported that the violence began when Palestinian suspects hurled rocks at Israeli civilians, damaging vehicles. A confrontation erupted between Israelis and Palestinians, leading to further rock-throwing. Security forces intervened, at which point Palestinians allegedly threw stones at them, prompting the arrests.

An Israeli citizen was also injured and evacuated for medical treatment.

The Israeli army denied reports that Balal was taken from an ambulance.


Katz: Hamas to pay ‘increasingly heavy price’ unless it frees hostages
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has approved the Israel Defense Forces’ operational plans to continue military actions against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

During a visit to the Gaza Division on Tuesday, Katz met with senior military officials, including Deputy IDF Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Tamir Yadai, Southern Command chief Maj. Gen. Yaniv Asor, Gaza Division commander Brig. Gen. Barak Hiram and 252nd Division commander Brig. Gen. Yehuda Vach.

“Our main goal is to bring the hostages home,” Katz stated. “If Hamas continues to refuse a deal, it will pay an increasingly heavy price. We will take territory, eliminate terrorist operatives and destroy infrastructure until Hamas is completely defeated.”

IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir has called for an escalation against the Hamas terrorist group.

“Hamas is stalling for time—this is a strategy, not just a tactic,” Zamir said in security discussions, according to a Channel 12 News report on Monday. “The IDF’s actions are hurting them and causing instability, but they are not leading to the release of hostages. Therefore, we have no choice—we must increase the pressure.”

Israeli political and military leaders are considering plans for a fresh ground campaign in Gaza that could include a military occupation of the entire enclave for months or longer, according to the Washington Post.


Seth Frantzman: Israel under emerging threats as Syria's Golan faces power vacuum
It’s not clear if elements linked to the former groups that operated in Yarmouk Basin have now re-appeared. Israel’s demand that the area be demilitarized seems to mean that a vacuum in power will emerge. When there is a vacuum, many threats will enter the area. That is the problem in southern Lebanon and in Gaza and the northern West Bank. In all of these areas, terrorists have emerged.

Media in the region are closely watching what happened in the Yarmouk Basin on Tuesday. For instance, the Hezbollah media outlet Al-Manar has said that “five Syrians were martyred” in the IDF strike. Hezbollah wants to use this apparently to show it backs Syrians, after having had to leave Syria when the Syrian regime fell. Iran’s Press TV said that seven people were killed. The pro-Iran Al-Mayadeen has also been reporting on the clash. The pro-Iranian reports say the men who were killed did not fire on the IDF. Clearly, Iran is seeking to exploit this incident. According to reports, the clash in Kuwaya also took place as the IDF is carrying out ground operations in this area near the border. The IDF has been trying to remove weapons and has also carried out strikes on former Syrian regime posts that used to be occupied by the Syrian army near the border. Now this area appears to be a kind of free-for-all as the IDF seeks to exert influence and control.

The IDF said on Tuesday that “the Paratroopers Brigade, under the command of the 210th Division, continue defensive activity to remove threats in Syria.” The report added that “in recent weeks, troops from the Paratroopers Brigade’s combat team, along with soldiers from the Yahalom Unit, operated in several locations following intelligence indications and located numerous weapons including: explosives, ammunition, mortar shells, military vests, combat equipment, munitions, and bullets. All of the items that were located were confiscated and dismantled. Troops of the 210th Division remain deployed in the area in order to protect the citizens of the State of Israel, particularly in the Golan.”

It’s unclear if these operations will lead to calm or if it could backfire and lead to elements entering areas such as the Yarmouk Basin and threatening Israel.


IDF carrying out ‘most powerful’ operations in Judea and Samaria since 2002, says Civil Admin head
The Israel Defense Forces’ counter-terrorism raids in Judea and Samaria are the “most powerful” since “Operation Defensive Shield” in 2002, Brig. Gen. Hisham Ibrahim, the head of the Israeli Defense Ministry’s Civil Administration, told local leadership during a meeting on Monday.

“The past year was the most powerful in terms of operational activity in Judea and Samaria since Defensive Shield,” Ibrahim declared during the meeting with dozens of mayors from Judea, Samaria and the Jordan Valley, Hebrew media reported on Tuesday.

“OC Central Command Maj. Gen. Avi Bluth, together with the division and all the units operating in the area, are leading a very powerful use of force against the terror nests in the terror camps in northern Samaria,” he said. “We are seeing the results on the ground.

As part of the IDF’s preparedness for “a variety of possible scenarios,” the army has worked to provide additional “security components” for the 500,000 residents of Jewish communities throughout the territory.

“As part of the work, dozens of plans were launched to improve the security of the communities, including unique access roads for IDF forces, landing pads and more,” Ibrahim revealed. “All of this is based on the understanding that we must be prepared for every scenario.”

“It can be stated that the good relationship between the local authorities and the IDF is a major component in maintaining security,” he added.

The military has been conducting an offensive in northern Samaria, dubbed “Operation Iron Wall,” since Jan. 21. On Feb. 23, Israeli tanks were spotted near the terrorist hotspot of Jenin for the first time since “Defensive Shield,” that lasted from March to May 2002.


Call me Back Podcast: WAR AND STRIFE - with Seth Frantzman
Israel’s pre-October 7th and post-October 7th worlds are colliding, as the war in Gaza resumes, along with the internal strife that preceded it.

Today we discuss Israel’s new and expanding military campaign in Gaza, its objectives, the difference in war-fighting strategy between the IDF’s former chief-of-staff and new chief-of-staff, and the kind of enemy the IDF is facing now in Gaza compared to what the IDF was facing before the ceasefire. All of this is against the backdrop of domestic political tensions reaching a boiling point over the Government’s efforts to remove the head of the Shin Bet and the Attorney General.

Our guest is Seth Frantzman, who joins us from Jerusalem. Seth is the senior Middle East correspondent and analyst at The Jerusalem Post. He is also an adjunct fellow at the Foundation For Defense of Democracies, and the author of three books. He received his PhD from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Seth has served as a research associate at the IDC in Herzliya and a lecturer at Al-Quds University. His latest book is The October 7 War: Israel’s Battle for Security in Gaza.

Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction
05:48 Internal and external pressure
09:53 Current IDF operations in Gaza
18:41 Gaza strategy and objectives
27:07 What was Hamas doing during the ceasefire?
30:15 U.S. involvement in the latest phase of the war
37:44 Managing war and strife


Israeli Intelligence Briefing | Israel Update with Brian Schrauger
In this exclusive interview from Jerusalem, I sit down with Dr. Seth Frantzman, one of Israel's foremost Middle East analysts whose encyclopedic knowledge cuts through the region's web of half-truths and propaganda. We conduct a comprehensive geopolitical tour around Israel's borders, beginning with the current Hamas situation in Gaza where 59 hostages remain captive. Seth provides rare insights into Hezbollah's diminished but persistent threat from Lebanon, the surprising power transition in Syria, Iraq's continuing Iranian influence, and most pressingly, the Houthi missile campaign from Yemen that has sent millions of Israelis—including ourselves—scrambling to shelters. With the sharp clarity that's become his trademark, Seth deconstructs Egypt's reluctant role in potential Gaza refugee resettlement and Iran's strategic calculations as it faces mounting pressure from both Israel and the Trump administration. What emerges is a sobering picture of Israel's multi-front challenges, but also a glimpse into potential diplomatic breakthroughs that could reshape regional dynamics in the coming months.


Hugh Hewitt: What is going on in Israel? Haviv Rettig Gur joined Hugh to explain the weekend’s tumult

Ask Haviv Anything: Episode 6: Why won't Israel fight for the Democrats? With Rep. Ritchie Torres
Abandoning the Democrats is a losing strategy for Israel, says Rep. Ritchie Torres, perhaps the most outspoken supporter of Israel in the US House of Representatives. The fight over Israel inside American politics is a proxy for a much larger battle over the future of the Democratic Party and the character of America, he argues. Those who don't like Israel, he says, tend to take a dim view of the promise of America.

And who is Clarence Jones, and why does Torres consider him "the greatest living American?"

Thank you to Jason and Lauriel Klinghoffer for sponsoring this episode in honor of Jason’s grandmother, Nusia Klinghoffer, a holocaust survivor who passed away last year.


The Benjamin Anthony Show from the Miryam Institute: JOHN SPENCER, CHAIR OF URBAN WARFARE STUDIES AT WEST POINT, LIVE IN ATLANTA
This episode of the podcast features my conversation with none other than John Spencer, Chair of Urban Warfare Studies at West Point, in front of a live Atlanta audience.

Our organization recently hosted a series of MirYam Institute campus presentations featuring John as the keynote speaker. That campus tour included lectures at Columbia Law School, The Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy at Tufts. John's initial comments were followed by audience questions from the pro., the anti and the undecided elements of the graduate student community.

That lecture series culminated with a presentation to the Atlanta Jewish community and it's that conversation that I'm pleased to share with you here.
Israeli hostage HUMILIATES United Nations with one question | The Quad
This week on “The Quad,” hosted by Israeli innovation envoy Fleur Hassan-Nahoum, we dive into the escalating regional tensions and cultural fault lines shaping global discourse. Joining Fleur are an incredible panel: Emily Schrader (journalist & human rights activist), Shoshanna Keats Jaskoll (founder of Chochmat Nashim), Barbara Heller (comedian & actress) and Daniel-Ryan Spaulding (comedian & commentator).

Topics covered this week:
Renewed Houthi attacks & U.S. retaliation
The Islamic Republic of Iran’s role in regional destabilization
The hostage crisis in Gaza & Hamas’s exploitation of humanitarian aid
U.S. foreign policy & the Trump doctrine
Iran’s internal resistance movement
The ideological divide in the American political landscape
Campus antisemitism & progressive radicalism
Free speech, cultural subversion & the fight for Western values
“Scumbag of the Week” and “Hero of the Week” segments featuring fearless truth-telling

00:00 The Current State of Conflict: Houthis and Israel
04:05 Iran's Influence and the Role of the U.S.
09:46 Humanitarian Aid and the Reality of War
15:56 Cultural Wars and Political Dynamics
21:59 Scumbag of the Week: Critique of Media and Activism
25:34 Gal Gadot's Advocacy and Historical Claims
30:08 Critique of Public Figures and Their Statements
35:54 Misunderstanding Hamas and Middle Eastern Politics
41:19 Free Speech and Consequences in the Workplace
45:28 Heroes of the Week: Standing Up for Truth


‘No compelling national interest’ in the West for a two-state solution
Newsweek Senior Editor-at-Large Josh Hammer says the West is stronger with an “emboldened and empowered” Israel which can take care of its own neighbourhood.

The major cities of Australia have experienced frequent pro-Palestinian protests since the October 7 attacks on Israel.

“There is no compelling national interest whatsoever for a country like the United States or Australia to support a ‘two-state solution’, which means carving up a new Muslim terror state in the heart of the Middle East,” Mr Hammer told Sky News host Gabriella Power.

“It’s time for the pro-Israel side to step up and start waging their own loud arguments ... that are not obnoxious, but they have the benefit of being grounded in truth.”




Home Office alerted as disgraced academic urges followers to target Zionists
Disgraced academic David Miller has urged his 89,000 social media followers to “find out” where Zionists are and “target them”.

In a post on Monday evening, using the hashtag #DismantleZionism, Miller wrote: “Protests are not enough. Listen to our brothers and sisters in Gaza. Those who are interested in ending this genocide must begin by targeting those responsible near them: the entire Zionist movement globally must live in fear of accountability until it is dismantled and its ideology eradicated. And let’s be clear, there are Zionists everywhere. In every town and city. Find out where they are.””

Other posts directly target high street retailer River Island, calling for shoppers to boycott the business “owned by the Lewis family of genocidaires”.

The Board of Deputies has written to the government expressing “serious concerns” over the posts’ “incendiary rhetoric” and “clearly threatening language, intended to stir up racial hatred.”

A CST spokesperson told Jewish News: “We are aware of the posts on X by David Miller and have reported him to the police. It is about time that Miller’s outrageous incitement is stopped. His rhetoric has gone unchecked for far too long, and no one should be allowed to spread such dangerous and inflammatory messages without facing consequences.”

Jewish News has contacted the Metropolitan Police and Home Office for comment.


Police alleged to push pro-Israel counter protest
Videos from an anti-Israel protest in Melbourne’s CBD on Sunday appeared to show police pushing pro-Israel counter-demonstrators as the mob chanted “All Zionists are terrorists”.

Thousands of ostensibly pro-Palestinian protesters returned to Melbourne’s city on Sunday afternoon. A sign at the protest read “Zionist kid killers be gone”, and in a video online a protestor allegedly yelled “I’ll kill you” towards a counter-protest supporting Israel.

Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive Alex Ryvchin criticised the offensive chant, “To declare that all Zionists are terrorists is not only an attack on the notion of Jewish equality, it is an attack on virtually every Jew that supports it.”

In the videos circulating online, Victoria police appear to push people holding Israeli and Australian flags, including members from the ‘Lions of Zion’. A person wearing a Lions of Zion T-shirt was pepper sprayed by Police after allegedly pushing a pro-Palestinian protestor to reclaim an Israeli flag.

Australian Jewish Association published a video of the police allegedly using force against the counter-protest on their social media.

Its CEO Robert Gregory told the AJN, “The actions from Victoria Police appear very concerning. For 18 months, the Jewish community has watched as anti-Israel activists have been allowed to take over Melbourne CBD. When a small, peaceful group from the Jewish community and their supporters gather, they were met with aggression from police.

“As the Jewish people were being led away, they were subjected to ugly, antisemitic chants but police did not intervene. There must not be a double standard in policing. Victoria Police owe the Jewish community an explanation.”

Jewish Community Council of Victoria President Philip Zajac commented to the AJN, “All Victorians, including Jewish Victorians, have the right to protest peacefully.

“The JCCV takes reports of aggressive and intimidating behaviour towards Jews seriously and maintains regular dialogue with Victoria Police, including police leaders in the CBD. We expect police to uphold the rights and safety of all in the CBD.

“We also encourage any community members planning to rally in the city to inform CSG and Victoria Police in advance to ensure appropriate protections are in place.”




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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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