Friday, March 20, 2026

03/19 Links Pt2: USAID investigating U.N. staff for Hamas ties; The Many Faces of Tucker Carlson; Rama's Politically Correct Nazism; Despite War, Israel Ranks 8th in Global Happiness Survey

From Ian:

Ersatz Israel
Antisemitism isn’t antipathy toward individual Jews. Rather, it is and has always been a structure of discourse pitched against Israel as a whole. It isn’t a question of hatred, or self-hatred, but an abortive attempt to restore moral coherence in a situation of mental and political breakdown.

Israel is designated as a conspiratorial agency driving this crisis and the individual failures extending from it. But the formula inverts reality. Despite persistent misconceptions on this point, Israel designates the conservative pole in the Western synthesis. Christianity, and the “lost sheep of Israel” (such as myself), represents the revolutionary, universal pole. Drawing from that well, John Lennon’s utopian anthem “Imagine” dreams of abolishing religion and nations to establish a borderless brotherhood of perpetual peace. In the decades since Lennon was shot, the West has pursued this fantasy to the point of auto-destruction. Meanwhile, Israel has moved in the opposite direction, reaffirming its sovereignty in the teeth of existential hostility.

Israel’s defiance of both Leninism and Lennonism has made it the major enemy of the left, which, under Soviet tutelage, expanded the concept of Zionism into a globalized metaphysical entity. A few months ago, I asked a curator at an art space in New York what he considers to be the principal challenges facing contemporary culture. His answer was “capitalism, fascism, and Zionism.” What these have in common is a refusal to recognize universal leftist moral authority—extending from the initial Jewish refusal to accept Christianity—translated into secular terms.

Meanwhile, the New Right looks at Israel with a mixture of suspicion and envy, caught between a desire for the United States to be more like Israel and the unhappy hypothesis that Israel itself (sometimes expressed as “the Jews” or “powerful Jews” or “Jewish power”) prevents this from happening. The New Right’s ostensible dream is a return to a “realist” foreign policy governed by America’s national interest, which is often somewhat bizarrely framed as a withdrawal from global power arrangements that directly and significantly benefit the United States.

Defining America’s interests means defining what America is and its place in the world. This procedure cuts both ways: A nation committed to nothing but the cynical maximization of power will not survive long. Here again, the left is more consistent than the New Right—a political formation still struggling for identity—since the left accepts that the question has existential dimensions, and correctly identifies Israel with the West it rejects.

But the strength of its passion also indicates a desire and a demand. The critical theme, across the political spectrum, conceives Israel as “the force that oppresses us” from a perspective in which America is seen to be lacking in political agency, and citizens feel they lack agency over their own lives. Israel is said to have entrapped America, when the speaker is themselves trapped by an obsession with Israel.

This syndrome reveals a special irony in the light of the early modern mobilization of Israel as a model for national sovereignty. Machiavelli characterized Moses as a model political strategist. Judith and Holofernes became a favorite theme for Flemish painters in the war of secession of the Dutch Republic from Spain.

The Mayflower Pilgrims went even further and identified themselves as a living version of the people of Israel, who had undertaken a new exodus to the new Zion of America. It was this identification that inspired America’s “manifest destiny” and still holds it together, just as philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder, when looking for a way to define the Romantic idea of a “people” or a “nation,” used the biblical Israel to hold his concept together. Evangelical pastor Doug Wilson’s argument that “Deuteronomy is about America” makes total sense within this religio-historical context: What the book presents is a script for maintaining national political structures against internal dissension and external threats, through a system of rituals that serve critical social functions—above all, the generational transmission of values through the formation of families.

The political story of the Tanakh as a whole is the cyclical loss of observance, resulting in periodic calamity, followed by miraculous recovery. The West is now somewhere between these phases. Today, post-national European states are fanatically anti-Israel, their fertility is beneath replacement, and their destruction is accelerating through mass migration. The same trends are intensifying in America. These phenomena are not separate; they are linked.

What the West has rejected is Israel as the template for national politics. What has replaced Israel is “Palestine”: a corrupt, post-political NGO zone seething with violence and sliding inexorably toward Islam.

For all these reasons, the question of Israel goes well beyond geopolitics or questions of national interest, whether American or Israeli: It concerns the identity and the destiny of the West. As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu put it, “The State of Israel shows the world what a fighting people look like, and what a fighting nation looks like.” What is at stake in the war with Iran is not just security but also the possibility of a new synthesis between the West’s universalist and nationalist poles. It is no longer a question of universalist nation building, but a refusal to continue to tolerate an Islamist terror state that has waged war against the West for almost 50 years. If that effort fails, the stakes will only get higher.
Seth Mandel: America’s Political-Violence Problem and Its Anti-Semitism Crisis Are Colliding
The recent uptick in political assassination attempts does not discriminate by party nor has it been limited to Jewish figures. There was the nearly successful attempt on President Trump’s life at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, the attempt to burn down Gov. Josh Shapiro’s home with his family inside it, the execution of Minnesota statehouse speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, the assassination of Charlie Kirk.

Still, coming amid an explosion in anti-Semitic violence with part of a political movement calling for a “global Intifada,” and given Moskowitz’s Jewishness and outspokenness on anti-Semitism, there are a couple points to make.

The first is that it isn’t censorship to criticize the hate preachers becoming increasingly popular in the modern political landscape. The Tucker Carlsons and Hasan Pikers of America have done much to normalize and popularize dangerous rhetoric, and the politicians who embrace them are insulating them from the norms that might otherwise cause society to shun them, as any healthy society would.

As it happens, in today’s Wall Street Journal, Third Way officials Jonathan Cowan and Lily Cohen have an excellent piece hammering Democrats for their embrace of Piker and their unwillingness, more broadly, to do what Ted Cruz and Tom Cotton did recently: publicly excoriate their own party and political movement for its tolerance of anti-Semitism.

The seeds for Cowan and Cohen’s column were sown last week when Cohen posted a tweet with a similar message. Cohen named Piker, Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner, and New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani as prominent leftward figures staining the Democratic Party with anti-Semitism. In response, Ro Khanna, a popular progressive member of Congress and likely 2028 presidential candidate, dismissed Cohen on X: “I am proud to stand with @grahamformaine @ZohranKMamdani & join @hasanthehun feed,” he posted.

Khanna is a big part of the problem facing our politics today, and he is clearly just getting started. It is a mark of our current political crisis that Khanna is so proud of his role boosting anti-Semites as violence continues to rise.

And the second point is closely related: Moskowitz puts himself in danger for calling out anti-Semitism. Where are all the other Democrats? Shouldn’t they have his back? Anti-Semites and so-called anti-Zionists have been trying to assassinate the party’s prominent Jews. Major Democratic officeholders ought to be scrambling to make a public address about the violent Jew-hatred in their party and the politicians supporting it. It does not let Republicans off the hook just because of what Cruz and Cotton have done, but it does highlight just how isolated Democrats have let folks like Moskowitz become. That needs to end now.
Khaled Abu Toameh: US Direct Talks with Hamas: Legitimizing and Empowering Terrorists
Engagement clearly signals to terrorists that violence is an effective path to power, land, and international recognition. Hamas is a group that is explicitly and fundamentally committed, in both ideology and practice, to "armed resistance" (terrorism).

Hamas is not some misunderstood political faction waiting to be coaxed into moderation. It advocates jihad (holy war) as an "individual duty [of all Muslims] for the liberation of Palestine."

Article 13 of the Hamas charter says: "There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors."

[T]here is no evidence that the terror group intends to fundamentally alter its long-term goals.

Talking to Hamas now, without its first adhering to Trump's preconditions, marks a sharp and potentially confusing policy reversal that weakens US credibility globally.

Across the region, the Iranian regime and its terror proxies are watching closely. The lesson for them will unmistakably be: hold out, escalate, and eventually the world's most powerful democracy will come to deliver victory to you.

Engaging Hamas as if it were a normal governing authority will only demonstrate to other terrorist groups that terrorism works.

Launching direct talks with Hamas or other Islamist terror groups absent any fundamental change in their positions is not diplomacy. It is capitulation and surrender dressed up as "realism."

Above all, direct engagement of Hamas is a concession to the jihadis, who believe Muslims are in an eternal confrontation with the enemies of Islam and must overthrow secular regimes to restore a "pure" Islamic state.


USAID inspector general’s office investigating U.N. staff for Hamas ties
The deputy inspector general of the U.S. Agency for International Development, Adam Kaplan, said on Tuesday that his office will investigate U.N. staff for ties to Hamas, noting that previous vetting requirements by the aid agency exempted employees of the international body.

Following the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks in Israel, USAID’s Office of Inspector General (USAID OIG) — responsible for conducting independent auditing and investigation of USAID and other foreign assistance programs — identified Gaza as a “high-risk for potential diversion and misuse of U.S.-funded assistance,” and has initiated investigations into several partners over connections to terrorism and fraud “to ensure humanitarian assistance in Gaza does not fall into the hands of Hamas and other foreign terrorist organizations.”

Previously, the agency has looked into the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which provides services to Palestinians, uncovering evidence in 2025 connecting three “current or former” UNRWA employees to the Oct. 7 attacks and affiliating 14 other “current or former” UNRWA employees with Hamas. UNRWA also itself dismissed nine of its employees for their potential participation in the attacks.

During a House Oversight and Intelligence Subcommittee hearing on Tuesday discussing wasteful foreign assistance spending, Kaplan noted that USAID “required partner vetting of organization staff” to ensure that “terrorists don’t get our money,” however, that action “exempted U.N. staff.”

“To address this gap, USAID IG is investigating U.N. staff for ties to Hamas to ensure U.S. taxpayers do not pay their salaries,” Kaplan said.

He also noted a lack of transparent access to information. Describing ongoing investigations, Kaplan said his department has sought information from “five different U.N. agencies on 10 investigations,” but that response times spanned six months to two years, something he called “unacceptable.”

“We encounter nonstop obstruction by the U.N. to share information about potential misuse of U.S. funds,” Kaplan said. “USAID heavily relied on award recipients operating in remote locations to self-disclose fraud allegations of all award recipients. The least transparent is the United Nations.”

“We urge the State Department to implement a clause mandating that awards to the U.N. provide us with access to information,” he added.
Serbia blasts Albanese for ‘unacceptable interference’ after her latest criticism of Israel
Serbia has sharply condemned Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories, for what it described as “unacceptable interference in internal affairs,” after she criticized the Balkan country’s military cooperation with Israel.

The diplomatic dispute follows Albanese’s visit to Belgrade this week, during which she accused Serbian authorities of collaborating “without shame” with Israel, claiming Serbia is among its strongest allies and that Serbian weapons are being used in Gaza.

“We consider the statements made by the United Nations Special Rapporteur, Mrs. Albanese, to be unbalanced and activist in nature, and as such inappropriate to the mandate she holds,” Serbia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement on Wednesday. “It is particularly concerning when such assessments are intertwined with her comments that directly encroach upon Serbia’s internal political matters. This is not the role of any international rapporteur and constitutes an unacceptable interference in the internal affairs of our country.”

Serbia and Israel maintain close ties, including growing cooperation in the security and defense sectors.

Albanese, who has faced longstanding criticism over alleged antisemitic remarks and rhetoric against Israel, has drawn international backlash in recent months. Earlier this year, she referred to Israel as a “common enemy of humanity” at a conference in Qatar.

She has also been criticized for downplaying the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, in which some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed—the deadliest assault on the Jewish people since the Holocaust—saying the events should be “put in context.” She later asserted that the United States is “subjugated by the Jewish lobby.”

The controversy comes after the United Nations Human Rights Council rejected efforts by U.S. and European lawmakers to remove her from her post.


As Germany accused at ICJ for aiding Israel, it pulls support for Jewish state before UN court
Germany said that it is withdrawing its backing of Israel in a genocide case that South Africa brought against the Jewish state before the International Court of Justice, as Berlin faces its own charges before the court for aiding Israel.

The court, which is based in The Hague, is the principal judicial arm of the United Nations.

Germany said in early 2024 that it would file a third-party intervention in South Africa’s case against Israel in the wake of the Hamas-led Oct. 7 terror attacks.

At the time, Berlin rejected South Africa’s claims as “baseless” and a “political instrumentalization” of the Genocide Convention, while supporting Israel’s right to self-defense.

Multiple German government officials said this week that the country is now withdrawing that support, as Berlin defends itself in a separate case that Nicaragua brought before the International Court of Justice.

Nicaragua alleges that Germany is violating international law, including the Genocide Convention, by supporting Israel politically, financially and militarially in its war against Hamas.

The court turned down Nicaragua’s request for emergency measures, but the case was allowed to proceed and remains active.

Germany has argued that the court cannot logically make a determination on its actions until it decides the case against Israel. An intervention on behalf of Israel could serve to undermine Germany’s reasoning.

“There will not be an intervention at the International Court of Justice,” stated Josef Hinterseher, deputy spokesman for the German Foreign Ministry.

“We are now part of a process at the ICJ initiated by Nicaragua, and we have decided to focus on this process,” he said.


Huckabee more “extremist” than Israeli “fascist” ministers, PA mouthpiece says
The Palestinian Authority has been waging a demonization campaign against U.S. ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, with the latest round of attack coming from Bethlehem’s governor against the diplomat’s remarks about Jews’ rights to the Land of Israel, Palestinian Media Watch said on Wednesday.

The P.A.-run Al-Hayat Al-Jadida daily reported on March 13 that Bethlehem Gov. Muhammad Taha Abu Alia inaugurated an intellectual seminar titled “From Religious Text to Diplomacy: Huckabee and Biblical Israel,” according to the Israel-based watchdog group.

During the event, Abu Alia emphasized his opposition to recent statements made by the U.S. ambassador regarding “the Jews’ right in Palestine,” the report read.

The governor also said that “refuting the Zionist narrative from a religious, historical, and political perspective is among the most important duties of struggle imposed on the Palestinian intellectuals and politicians,” according to the P.A. daily.

Palestinian Media Watch noted that the lecture was sponsored by the anti-Israel NGO International Academic Campaign to End Occupation and Annexation, which is part of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement that promotes the financial suffocation of the Jewish state.

An “Israeli affairs expert,” Fayez Abbas, appeared on the P.A.’s Palestine This Morning show on Feb. 26, describing Israeli Ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir as “fascists,” yet “not as extremist as the U.S. ambassador in Tel Aviv,” the Palestinian Media Watch statement read.
Catholic leaders rebuke antisemitism as fringe group embraces Candace Owens, Joe Kent
In the 24 hours before a fringe Catholic political group planned to host a gala in Washington honoring a number of public figures who have faced accusations of antisemitism, several prominent members of the American Catholic Church stated unequivocally that antisemitism is not a part of their religious doctrine.

“The Jewish community is attacked at a far higher rate than any other religious group in the United States. If we Catholics, in truly living out the Gospel, are to defend religious freedom with integrity, we must clearly speak out against antisemitism,” Archbishop Alexander K. Sample, the archbishop of Portland, Ore., said in a video posted by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops on Wednesday.

Sample is the chairman of the religious liberty commission at the USCCB, the membership organization of current and retired Catholic bishops in the United States. The video was timed with the upcoming Easter holiday, which Sample said has “at times been the occasion for outbursts of hatred and even violence against Jews” by Catholics who collectively hold the Jews responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus.

“As Catholics, we are called to walk in the truth and so to reject the conspiracies and lies that lead to harassment and even violence against our Jewish brothers and sisters,” said Sample.

On Thursday morning, Vince Haley, the director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, delivered greetings from President Donald Trump at the annual National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in Washington. Haley, who is Catholic, wrapped up his own remarks with a call for Catholics to take a stand against antisemitism.


The Many Faces of Tucker Carlson
It’s only become more blatant now that Carlson isn’t constrained by a TV network. In September 2024, he invited podcaster Darryl Cooper on to his show to explain why Winston Churchill “was the chief villain of the Second World War,” having been “put in place by people, financiers, by a media complex” who “shared his interests in terms of Zionism.” The episode drew widespread condemnation from historians, journalists, and Jewish organisations. Carlson, however, was unperturbed. A year later, he interviewed Nick Fuentes, a self-declared Christian nationalist who has said that Hitler was “really fucking cool.” Carlson’s defence at such times is that he’s “just asking honest questions.” Yet, as Carlson knows, it matters what questions you ask. Fuentes got nothing but softballs from Carlson, even when he praised Joseph Stalin and began deriding “organised Jewry in America.” Senator Ted Cruz, a longtime supporter of Israel, on the other hand, was given a much tougher time:

In some respects, little has changed over the past thirty years. Carlson is still married to the same woman, Susie, whom he met in high school and wed in 1991. The bow tie is long gone, but otherwise the getup is much the same: two-tone Rolex, loafers with no socks, hair perpetually mussed, as though he just finished a game of squash. He looks more like the commodore of a yacht club than a tribune for the common man. Nevertheless, that’s what he’s become. Like Trump, he portrays himself as a traitor to his class. I know the system is rigged, he tells his audience, because I’ve hung out with the people who rigged it. And like Trump, he’s willing to entertain some pretty wild-eyed conspiracy theories. Recent episodes of The Tucker Carlson Show have included discussions of chemtrails, “lights in the sky,” demonic possession, and how Brigitte Macron, the First Lady of France, is actually a man in disguise.

It’s sad to see Carlson peddling such tripe. Once a gifted essayist and broadcaster, comparable to Joseph Mitchell and George Plimpton, he now sounds like a supermarket tabloid published by the Kremlin. But this is what makes him such a fascinating figure. He’s the Zelig of political journalism, popping up at every recent inflection point, from the advent of cable news to the rise of Donald Trump and the takeoff of longform podcasts. By focusing on Carlson’s degradation over the past thirty years, Zengerle shows how the entire news industry has degraded during the same period.

Carlson is sometimes compared to Father Charles Coughlin, the demagogic radio priest of the 1930s. But Zengerle thinks Carlson more closely resembles Joseph Sobran, William F. Buckley’s protégé at National Review, who gradually became consumed by his hatred for, first, Israel and then Jews generally. In 1993, Buckley fired Sobran because, as Buckley delicately phrased it, “readers of some of his work could reasonably conclude that he was anti-Semitic.” Sobran spent his final years self-publishing an odious little newsletter and hanging around with the disgraced historian and Holocaust denier David Irving. Not long thereafter, Carlson claimed to have spotted Sobran sitting alone in a suburban Denny’s, talking to himself since no one else would listen.

It’s ironic that Carlson eventually wound up taking much the same ideological turn. The big difference between the two men is that Carlson isn’t babbling to himself in a diner. He’s talking to the president on a regular basis. He’s got millions of loyal listeners. His son works for vice president J.D. Vance. Trump’s attack on Iran is obviously a setback for Carlson, who counselled restraint in the Middle East, but it’s unlikely to signal the end of his influence in American politics. He’s overcome bigger obstacles in his career. And, as he’s shown time and again, he’ll do anything for an audience.
In Carlson interview, Joe Kent doubles down on Israel conspiracy theories
Joe Kent, who resigned earlier this week from his role as director of the National Counterterrorism Center over his opposition to the war in Iran, offered a litany of baseless accusations about Israel while defending the Iranian regime in an appearance on Tucker Carlson’s program on Wednesday.

Kent doubled down in the interview on an allegation made in his resignation statement that Israel coerced the U.S. into the war for its own benefit. As evidence, Kent and Carlson — a friend of Kent’s and a leading critic of the Trump administration’s approach to Iran in the conservative movement — pointed to Secretary of State Marco Rubio saying earlier this month that the “imminent threat” that prompted the U.S. to take action was the foreknowledge that Israel was going to strike, likely resulting in retaliation against American targets by the Iranian regime.

“So, the imminent threat that the secretary of state is describing is not from Iran,” Carlson mused. “It’s from Israel.”

“Exactly,” Kent replied. “And I think this speaks to the broader issue, who is in charge of our policy in the Middle East? Who’s in charge of when we decide to go to war or not?”

Kent argued that the Israelis “felt emboldened that no matter what they did, no matter what situation they put us in, they could go ahead and take this action and we just have to react.”

He suggested that the U.S. could have threatened to cut off Israel’s military aid, including defensive weapons, in order to prevent them from attacking Iran.

“We could have said to the Israelis: ‘No, you will not and if you do, we will take something away from you,'” Kent told Carlson. “It’s fine that we offer defense to Israel but when we’re providing the means for their defense, we get to dictate the terms of when they go on the offensive.”

Kent also raised questions during the interview about possible foreign ties to the assassination of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk last fall. He told Carlson he tried to investigate Kirk’s killing, at a Turning Point USA event at a Utah college, last fall because of the pressure Kirk was facing over backsliding GOP support for Israel, but was blocked by the Justice Department and FBI. Kent said that the last time he saw Kirk was last summer at the White House, and claimed that the final message Kirk gave him was to “stop us from getting into a war with Iran.”


Bernie Sanders, progressives to force new votes on blocking arms sales to Israel
The Senate is set to hold another round of votes on blocking U.S. arms transfers to Israel, as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) filed three new joint resolutions of disapproval against $658.8 million in sales of 500- and 1,000-pound bombs to Israel and “defense articles” for 250-pound bombs.

“Given the horrific destruction that Israel’s extremist government has wrought on Gaza, Iran and Lebanon, the last thing in the world that American taxpayers need to do right now is to provide 22,000 new bombs to the Netanyahu government,” Sanders said. “No more weapons to support an illegal war.”

The effort is being co-sponsored by Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Peter Welch (D-VT).

Sanders emphasized that the administration had sidestepped normal congressional review procedures using emergency authorities in advancing the arms sales earlier this month.

Sanders and other progressive Democrats have forced votes on similar efforts to block arms sales to Israel on three previous occasions since the war in Gaza began, with a majority of the Democratic caucus — 27 lawmakers — voting to block at least one arms sale in July of last year, a significant jump in support from similar efforts in November 2024 and April 2025.

Israel’s standing among Democrats has worsened since last July, with even some Democrats who supported continued arms sales at that time blaming Israel for dragging the U.S. into the war in Iran. Polls show registered voters now see Israel more negatively than positively.
Ro Khanna Goes to Bat for Pat Buchanan, Hasan Piker, and Nazi Tattoo Guy in Wild Tweetstorm
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) responded to a critical column in The Washington Post by throwing his weight behind a trio of controversial — and arguably anti-Semitic — political personalities on Thursday.

The column, written by conservative commentator James Kirchick, takes Khanna to task for flip-flopping on issues ranging from Israel to the 2016 Democratic presidential primary, as well as excoriates him for his handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case.

“Khanna has apparently decided that exploiting the Epstein scandal, facts and propriety be damned, is the way to remedy that obscurity,” argued Kirchick before characterizing the congressman as “a man whose lust for power is unseemly even by Washington standards.”

In a tweetstorm on Thursday, Khanna objected strenuously — if not substantively — to the charges against him.

⁦”@jkirchick⁩ does a hit piece on me for standing up to the Epstein Class. His real beef with me has been that I have called what happened in Gaza a genocide. I welcome the hatred of Netanyahu apologists,” he wrote in his opening parry on X.


Tlaib accuses Israel of ‘ethnic cleansing’ in Lebanon
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), a progressive member of the anti-Israel “squad” in Congress, accused Israel of carrying out “ethnic cleansing” in Lebanon and said there should be a total U.S. arms embargo on the Jewish state.

“As we approach the celebration of Eid al-Fitr, thousands of our families with strong ties to Lebanon are struggling right now,” she stated. “This year’s Eid feels different for us. I know many have lost loved ones, watched their grandparents’ homes be bombed and seen relatives uprooted from their neighborhoods.”

The statement came just days after a gunman rammed a truck into a Michigan synagogue with a school and shot at security guards, and after the New York Times and others were criticized for appearing to justify the attacks by explaining that the attacker lost relatives in strikes in Lebanon. It later emerged that those relatives were members of the Hezbollah terror organization.

Tlaib said that the attacks on the terror organization amounted to “ethnic cleansing” that “has already killed nearly 1,000 people, including over 100 children.”

“One million people—one fifth of Lebanon’s entire population—have been forcibly displaced and told by the Israeli military that they will not be allowed to return home,” she wrote. “This is all being supported and enabled by our tax dollars.”

“We are witnessing the same genocidal playbook used against Palestinians in Gaza, now in Lebanon,” she stated.
Eve Barlow: Rama's Politically Correct Nazism
The double standard is glaring. If Rama is a private citizen, doesn’t that make Representative Dan Goldman’s wife the same? Corinne was eviscerated by the New York Times for (accurately) comparing Queers For Palestine to “chickens for KFC”, claiming the BLM movement is a terrorist organization (see my story above), and suggesting people who support Hamas be sent to Gaza (why not move closer to your political heroes?). Instead of giving Rama similar treatment, they re-framed her social media activity as “support for the Palestinian cause”. Is this an admission by the New York Times that they don’t distinguish between Hamas and Palestinians?

I have wondered often in the last week: would Madame Mamdani even be allowed to make her own statement? Does Zohran’s ideology allow it? Or is it more a case of fear that her mouth would run? When Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s wife was blamed for the upside-down American flag that appeared on his house in 2021 after the January 6 insurrection, Tim Walz said he was “stunned” by the transgression. That it’s “not normal”. Alito’s wife didn’t get the “private citizen” pass. You wonder if Walz thinks it’s “normal” that an actual Representative – Rashida Tlaib – has had a Palestinian flag outside of her office on Capitol Hill for the last seven years, but never an upright American flag? Are our thoughts - private citizen or otherwise – subject to criticism only when they are from politically correct Nazis? That seems not “normal”. Israel war: Tlaib still has a Palestinian flag hanging outside her House office

I was cancelled for advocating against hate. Politically correct Nazism is protected for supporting incitement to violence. Anyone who doesn’t see this clearly is a walking hazard. That they take up residence in Gracie Mansion in the city with the highest Jewish population anywhere outside of Israel, a city that survived the worst Islamist terrorist attack in the West ever, turns a casual analysis of double standards into a moral examination for our survival.

It’s likely Rama would get along with fellow rape apologist - and former Australian of the Year – Grace Tame, who is now on a press tour complaining about her gig cancellations following her exposure for chanting “globalize the Intifada” in a public square in Sydney. The radio interview that dropped yesterday has to be heard to be believed. Tame is not being granted the “private citizen” defense. She thinks the playing field between herself and Israel is not level. I wouldn’t call my own experience versus The Internet a level playing field, but I’m not out here peddling rape denial. Tame’s stunning delusion demonstrates the urgency of calling out this rot wherever it exists, whether it’s in the streets, or (I’m so sorry) in Mamdani’s sheets.


Shame on Tame, shame on Australia
Grace Tame appeared on the ABC, Australia’s official broadcaster, this week, and had this listener’s question put to her:
‘Can you please ask Grace why she is selective in her outrage? I have never heard her condemn or speak out on behalf of the Israeli women who were raped and killed by Hamas on October 7,’ the interviewer asked her on behalf of the listener, before adding, ‘Have you spoken about that, have you expressed outrage about that?’

To which Grace Tame replied, ‘I’m not going to sink to the level of entertaining any kind of propaganda, Hamish. Let’s not do that.’ When the interviewer retorted, correctly, ‘What’s the propaganda included in that question?’ Ms Tame replied: ‘Those things have been debunked.’

As Rebecca Weisser writes in her must-read column this week,

‘Debunked? How do you debunk Hamas bodycam footage of a woman set on fire with gasoline from the waist down, and who may still be alive? Or video of Hamas terrorists shouting “Allahu Akbar” as they sat astride 23-year-old Shani Louk’s lifeless body, her top pulled up, her bare legs splayed while jeering crowds spat on her? It took the UN five months, but they did eventually say there was evidence of rape, gang rape, genital mutilation, sexualised torture, and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.’

The simple truth is that, not only as an ‘advocate for survivors of sexual assault’ but as a human being, Grace Tame has not only shamed herself, she has shamed Australia. And she has completely denigrated and destroyed the respect Australians should have had for future recipients of the Australian of the Year award. Her selfishness, stupidity and arrogance deserve outright condemnation from the Prime Minister and the government.

Either Ms Tame apologises not only to every family member of every man and woman savagely raped or sexually assaulted by Hamas (yes, men were raped too), but to every Australian and every Jew, for her disgusting moral relativism and gobsmacking ignorance.

And if she won’t unequivocally apologise, she should be immediately stripped of her Australian of the Year title, if not by this cowardly Labor government then by the next Coalition government. Otherwise, scrap this sullied award altogether.


Old-fashioned antisemitic tropes and trendy anti-Zionism converge at US Quds Day rallies
On Friday, at an Al Quds Day protest in Times Square, a protest leader directed the crowd to chant “Stop eating babies” toward a handful of mostly Jewish counter-protesters.

As surprising as it was to hear the charge that Zionists “eat babies” in New York City in 2026, equally surprising was the willingness with which the crowd took up the chant. There was no confusion or hesitancy about the outlandish allegation — the hundreds in attendance repeated the chant with enthusiasm, without skipping a beat.

“Stop eating babies! Stop raping kids!” they chanted toward counter-protesters holding Israeli flags across the street behind a line of police officers and metal barricades, recalling the age-old blood libel that says Jews murder and consume children for ritual purposes.

The rally illustrated how anti-Israel activists incorporate historical manifestations of anti-Jewish discrimination under the guise of anti-Zionist political activism, from the blood libel to Nazi-era tropes, mixed with contemporary academic theories. Anti-Zionism acts as a container for these historical tropes, blending them together with progressive talking points.

A cadre of scholar-activists has argued that anti-Zionism is the third major iteration of discrimination against Jews. The first was anti-Judaism, based on religion, the second was antisemitism, focused on race, and the third, anti-Zionism, is a hatred of Jewish peoplehood, the activists say.

Anti-Zionism is marked by three core “libels” — that “Zionists” are colonizers, guilty of apartheid, and committing genocide, say the scholars, such as anthropologist Adam Louis-Klein and researcher Naya Lekht, who have each launched groups opposed to anti-Zionism. The claims are used as insults and cudgels, repeated ad nauseam, and are largely irrefutable. Activists have redefined crimes like genocide and apartheid and reworked academic concepts to accuse Israel, and arguments from Israel’s advocates are mostly ignored.

Anti-Zionist rhetoric was prominent at the Times Square rally, with speakers repeatedly accusing Zionism of “imperialism” and “colonialism,” calling Israel a “genocidal entity,” heralding the “decolonization of West Asia” in the Iran war, and accusing Israel of apartheid.

Minutes before the blood libel chant, a protest leader derided Israel as the “Zionist, colonist, terrorist state.”

While anti-Zionism has its own tropes and framework, it does not exclude previous forms of antisemitism, but incorporates them, which was also evident at the protest.


‘It’s not true,’ Lipstadt tells JNS of prof’s letter saying she shouldn’t speak at University of Washington
Deborah Lipstadt, a historian and former U.S. special envoy for monitoring and combating anti-semitism in the Biden administration, told JNS that a University of Washington misrepresented her beliefs in a letter to the student paper, the Daily.

Sasha Senderovich, assistant professor of Slavic languages and literatures at the public school in Seattle and an affiliated Jewish studies faculty member, wrote in the paper that it was “troubling” that the school hosted Lipstadt’s March 10 talk on “fighting antisemitism around the globe.”

The talk, which the professor said was a Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle request, was inappropriate since Lipstadt “has publicly supported the deportation of student protesters under policies advanced by Donald Trump,” Senderovich wrote.

Canary Mission posted a screen capture of a letter accusing the Jewish state of “genocide” that Senderovich appeared to have signed.

“It’s not true,” Lipstadt told JNS, of the professor;s letter. “To call me a Trumpist is to completely distort who I am, what I stand for and what I’ve said.”

Although Lipstadt, Dorot professor of modern Jewish history and Holocaust studies at Emory University, believes some students “crossed the line,” she told JNS that she “never said anybody should be deported for political speech.”

A Turkish national studying at Tufts University, whose removal proceedings ended last month after she spent a year in federal detention was, Lipstadt said, “picked up for an op-ed she wrote in the student newspaper.”

“It’s critical, but not unbalanced and certainly not antisemitic,” she told JNS.

Overly broad accusations of antisemitism can dilute the issue, the scholar cautioned, quoting from the Talmud.

“If you grab too much, you don’t grab anything at all,” she told JNS.


Exclusive: Jewish Guardian staff ‘gaslit’ over ‘progressive antisemitism’ in Gail’s column
Jewish journalists at The Guardian have accused the paper’s editors of “gaslighting” them amid the outrage over football writer Jonathan Liew’s column for the paper, which appeared to defend the vandalism directed at the Archway branch of Gail’s bakery by pro-Palestine activists.

Liew was heavily criticised for an article suggesting that the presence of the North London store next to a Palestinian-run café was “an act of heavy-handed high-street aggression”.

He also referred to the vandalism, which activists claim was due to the reported investments of Gail’s parent company, Bain Capital, in Israeli defence firms, as “small acts of petty symbolism”.

These have included smashing the outlet’s windows and graffitiing anti-Israel slogans on its shopfront.

The Guardian has since issued a correction to the piece, removing the “petty symbolism” remark in order, it claimed, to avoid “misunderstanding”, as well as “clarifying” that his comment about “aggression” was “meant to refer to the described fears about the chain’s impact on small traders”.

However, speaking to the JC on condition of anonymity, one Jewish staff member said: “Jonathan Liew's article is a classic case of progressive antisemitism. God knows how many editors had to read the piece and agree with it, as they have their entire worldview shaped by anti-Zionism. The subsequent explanation is gaslighting. It’s disgusting.”

Another added: “This hasn't told me anything about The Guardian that I didn't already know/suspect.

"The article would have been seen by at least five different pairs of eyes before launch, so I think it just shows how accepted these views are within the organisation.”

And a third accused the paper’s senior editors of “gaslighting” Jewish employees and readers over the issue.

"Especially since October 7 dozens of articles have appeared in The Guardian that have similarly demonised Jews and Israelis, and that have whitewashed, justified and even celebrated the openly racist targeting of Jews by antisemites under the guise of anti-Zionism,” they told the JC.
Huckabee slams reports on Christian, Muslim holy sites closures
U.S. ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee demonstrated on Wednesday that reports about Israel’s closure of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem amid the ongoing war are misleading and taken out of context.

These reports omit the “important fact [that] the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest site is also closed,” Huckabee tweeted.

He noted that a large piece of an Iranian missile had landed recently in the courtyard of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. “If not closed, mass casualties [would have ensued],” the ambassador added.

On March 16, an Iranian ballistic missile exploded over Israel’s capital, with debris falling on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Armenian Patriarchate, the Jewish Quarter and the Temple Mount near al-Aqsa mosque.

Last week, a media watchdog reported that official Palestinian Authority TV is “libeling” Israel by falsely claiming that Israeli wartime restrictions at Al-Aqsa mosque are intended to facilitate an extremist Jewish Passover sacrifice.

Israel’s across-the-board ban on public gatherings of more than 50 people out of security concerns went into effect following the outbreak of war in Iran on Feb. 28. But a report on Monday on official P.A. TV said that the limitations were geared to enable Jews to carry out a Passover sacrifice at the Jerusalem holy site.

On March 14, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said that Jewish, Christian and Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem have been closed “for one reason: protecting worshippers.” “The same safety measures apply to the Western Wall, Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre,” the ministry wrote in an X post.


‘Somebody came into my house to shoot my babies’: Temple Israel, Federation call for federal security measures after attack
A rabbi from Temple Israel and the heads of the Jewish Federations of North America met with members of Congress on Tuesday to call for a near-four-fold increase in federal security spending after last week’s attack on the Reform congregation in Michigan.

Eric Fingerhut, president and CEO of the Federation, told JNS that it was “sheer miraculous luck” and years of preparation from the synagogue’s security team that prevented the attacker from carrying out a massacre.

Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, 41, a U.S. citizen born in Lebanon, rammed his vehicle into the synagogue in West Bloomfield Township, a suburb of Detroit, shortly after noon on Thursday. His truck was laden with improvised explosives believed to be gasoline and fireworks, according to the FBI.

Ghazali struck one of the temple’s security officers with the vehicle and began firing a gun through the windshield, unable to exit the stuck truck. Ghazali then shot and killed himself after engaging in a gunfight with synagogue security and his truck catching fire.

“This could have been the greatest terrorist tragedy in America since 9/11,” Fingerhut said. “It would have been the greatest attack on Jews since Oct. 7 if the truck had gotten inches further through the hallway instead of being stopped by the walls and by the armed security guards.”

Rabbi Jen Lader told JNS that the hallway Ghazali drove the truck into is usually “filled with children” under the age of 5.

“We have babies in the building who are in a stroller to sleep for nap time,” Lader said. “One of our guys was hit by the car. He was unconscious and broke his leg and has lots of injuries, and he woke up and dragged himself over to the wing, which is right in the hallway where our two rooms of our littlest babies are, and bolted the door shut, so that they wouldn’t get hurt.”

None of the 140 children at the synagogue’s early childhood center was harmed, and the security guard was the only member of its staff who was injured.

Lader showed JNS images of the aftermath of the attack, one of which she agreed to share for publication, of shattered glass in the hallways and nursery rooms of the synagogue and the incinerated hallway where she normally spends time high-fiving children.


Suspended sentence for man who punched woman in antisemitic Shoreham attack
A man who punched a woman twice in the face during an antisemitic attack in West Sussex has been handed a suspended prison sentence.

Romilly Hudson, 44, was sentenced to nine months’ imprisonment, suspended for 18 months, at Worthing Magistrates’ Court on 16 March. The court increased the sentence from eight months to reflect the racist element of the offence.

The attack took place at around 1.25 pm in January 2025 in Shoreham, when the victim approached a Gaza-related market stall being run by Hudson and others. Prosecutors said she had intended to engage in a calm and reasoned conversation.

Instead, Hudson directed antisemitic abuse at her before launching an unprovoked assault, punching her twice in the face. She was left with bruising to her face, eye, and ear.

Hudson has previously pleaded guilty at Crawley Magistrates’ Court in October 2025 to racially or religiously aggravated assault occasioning actual bodily harm, as well as a separate charge of racially or religiously aggravated harassment. He had earlier failed to appear at Brighton Magistrates’ Court in July 2025 when facing the charges.

In addition to the suspended sentence, he was ordered to pay a £120 fine – increased from £80 due to the hate element of the offence – and was made subject to a restraining order that bars him from entering Shoreham-by-Sea for one year.
Holocaust monument defaced in Hanover, Germany
Unidentified individuals sprayed antisemitic slogans on a Holocaust memorial monument in the city of Hanover in Germany on Wednesday, the mayor said.

“These slogans on the memorial in the heart of Hanover are yet another sign of how antisemitism all too often breaks through in our society, seeking its place in its center,” Mayor Belit Onay said in a statement on the website of the municipality.

“Antisemitism is and remains a major problem, and combating it is our duty. We continue to stand by our Jewish fellow citizens,” he added.

Onay, a member of the left-wing Green Party, clashed with the federal government last year over its refusal to allow his city to receive refugees from Gaza. Following the controversy, thousands marched through Hanover to protest the refusal. “Israel is a terror state” was chanted at the rally, which the municipality had authorized.

The municipality said the graffiti incident happened in the early morning hours of Wednesday. “Antisemitic graffiti was discovered at the Holocaust Memorial. The slogans were directed specifically against Jewish people and were written on the memorial. Police officers from the Hanover Police Department covered the graffiti with yellow spray chalk that same day,” the statement said.

Police are investigating the identity of the culprits, it added. Neither the city’s website nor reports in the German media about the incident specified the phrases or symbols spray-painted on the monument. Defacing a Holocaust monument with the intention of inciting hatred against Jews can carry a prison sentence of up to five years in Germany.

“This act is part of a series of attacks on memorial sites in Hanover and the surrounding region,” the municipality said in its statement. “The memorial in Hanover-Ahlem, for example, has been repeatedly targeted with graffiti and vandalism in recent years, most recently in January 2025,” it added.

The monument defaced on Wednesday was for the city’s 6,000 Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust. The Ahlem monument was for 840 forced labor workers, most of whom were Jews, who were made to build a tunnel for a rubber company deemed vital to the Nazi war effort. Construction began less than six months before the U.S. 84th Infantry Division liberated Hanover in April 1945.


Far-left lawmakers booed out of memorial event in Toulouse
At the 14th annual commemoration ceremony on Thursday for the murder of four French Jews at a Jewish school in Toulouse, participants booed representatives of the far-left France Unbowed (LFI) party, forcing them to leave.

The incident occurred at the city’s Capitole square, where hundreds had gathered for speeches and a wreath-laying tribute, Sud Radio reported. When LFI lawmakers François Piquemal and Hadrien Clouet laid their wreath, dozens of people began booing them, calling them “far-left fascists” and “antisemites,” and shouting “Shame on you” until police intervened and asked the men to leave to preserve the peace, the report said.

The incident was usual for the event, where LFI representatives had participated in previous years. This year’s commemoration fell three days ahead of Sunday’s second and final round in the municipal elections, where the Socialist Party and the far-left LFI have run jointly in some locales to beat right-wing candidates. CRIF, the umbrella group of French Jewish communities, has condemned this collaboration, saying LFI has antisemitic tendencies and an “anti-republican” (meaning anti-constitutional) agenda.

LFI leader Jean-Luc Melenchon has called Israel a “genocide state” and has frequently used antisemitic rhetoric.

In a 2017 speech, Mélenchon called French Jews “an arrogant minority that lectures to others.” In an earlier speech, he celebrated anti-Israel protesters days after some of them stormed a synagogue, condemning only French Jews who demonstrated to support Israel.

At the school on March 12, 2012, a jihadist murdered Rabbi Jonathan Sandler, 30, his sons Arieh, 6, and Gabriel, 3, and 8-year-old Myriam Monsonego, daughter of the head teacher.


Israel’s defense companies report record $80 billion backlog as global demand surges
Israeli defense companies are currently publishing their financial reports for 2025, which show a big jump in their order backlogs.

An investigation by Globes finds that public companies in the defense sector, together with the government-owned Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), have a huge order backlog of over $80 billion. For comparison, this is an amount significantly higher than Israel's health budget or the country's total annual interest repayments.

The latest to publish its financial report showing an increase in the order backlog is Elbit Systems Ltd., the most valuable Israeli company traded on the TASE and Wall Street. Elbit ended 2025 with an order backlog at a record level of $28.1 billion, up $2.9 billion in the fourth quarter alone and $5.5 billion from 2024.

By geographic region, Israel accounted for 32.2% of sales in 2025, with over $2.5 billion, a growth of 28.6%. Europe, where sales grew by 17.5% to $2.1 billion, accounted for 27% of sales, and North America with a share of 20.9% and an annual growth of 9.1%.

Elbit's record orders backlog reflects the growing demand for defense systems. In recent years, due to the war in the Middle East and, earlier, the Ukraine-Russia War, there has been a change in the policies of countries, which are increasing defense budgets.

Elbit is not alone
Elbit Systems is by no means the only Israeli company benefiting from the big demand for defense products. Others have already published their financial reports, including IAI, which had an orders backlog of $29 billion at the end of 2025, compared with $25 billion at the end of 2024.

Next Vision had an orders backlog of $218 million at the end of 2025, which had already climbed to $288 million last week. Rafael, will report its latest figures in the coming few days, but several months ago its orders backlog was $22 billion.

At Rafael, which, unlike IAI and Elbit, that are more focused overseas, the orders backlog is split roughly 50-50 between Israel and abroad.
Israeli-founded companies created 20,000 jobs in California in 2024, report says
Israeli-founded companies created more than 20,000 jobs in California and paid average earnings nearly double those of other companies in the state in 2024, according to a new report from the U.S.-Israel Business Alliance.

“It’s really interesting and helpful to actually quantify what the economic impact of Israeli-founded companies in California looks like,” Aaron Kaplowitz, president of the alliance, told JNS.

Released on Tuesday, the report states that, as of 2024, there are 367 Israeli-founded companies in the state, which created 22,650 jobs.

Those companies added $6.5 billion to the economy—similar to gross domestic product—and $8.9 billion in total gross economic output, or overall business activity, according to the report.

The average earnings from jobs that Israeli companies created was $175,093 annually, which Kaplowitz called the report’s “most eye-popping statistic.” Average annual income in the state is $88,255, per the report.

“If you look at all the other companies, the state average is $88,000 and change, so it’s almost exactly double the average earnings at jobs not created by Israeli-founded companies,” Kaplowitz told JNS.

According to the report, 32 Israeli-founded “unicorns,” or companies with a value of at least about $1 billion, are headquartered in the state. That’s the most of any state and is followed by New York, according to Kaplowitz.

“These companies tend to have a higher valuation,” he told JNS. “They are huge job creators typically and they generate a lot of revenue, because they’re doing a lot of business.”

Four of the top five industries of Israeli-founded companies in the state are in the technology field––custom computer programming services, software publishers, computer equipment manufacturing and computer systems design services.

The other industry is restaurants, which comes in fourth of five.


Despite War, Israel Ranks 8th in Global Happiness Survey
Despite another year of war on several fronts, Israel once again ranked eighth in the World Happiness Report published on Thursday, for the second year in a row.

The U.S. was 23rd, the UK 29th, and France 35th.

Anat Fanti, a researcher at Bar-Ilan University, said, "It doesn't surprise me because Israelis have a sense of meaning and purpose, which contributes to their overall satisfaction with life."

In sharp contrast to other Western nations, Israelis under the age of 25 were found to be the happiest demographic within Israeli society, ranking third globally.

In the U.S., the happiness of young people has plummeted to 60th place.

"Young Israeli people are much more grounded compared to their age group in other countries," Fanti said.

They go into military service and "make decisions between 18 and 21 that are far beyond their years."

Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics found that overall life satisfaction among Israelis aged 20 plus remained remarkably high at 91.1% through 2024.




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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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