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Saturday, April 18, 2026

04/17 Links Pt2: Jabotinsky Was Right About Everything; What do the Democrats want from Israel?; How the Greens chose Gaza over the environment; Billy Corgan interviews David Draiman

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: Jabotinsky Was Right About Everything (So Cheer Up!)
Jabotinsky believed the future State of Israel—he didn’t live to see it, but he knew it would come—had to produce more than Jaffa oranges; it had to build things the world needed. He was right: He presaged the emergence of “the start-up nation” by many decades.

His influential writings on Ukrainian nationalism and Russian imperialism were eerily predictive of our current moment. His belief in the importance of persuading the general American public, and not just the government, of the justice of the Zionists’ cause has been likewise vindicated.

And these are just a few of the examples. There are more, because Jabotinsky was right about it all.

And that is one reason to feel less pessimistic about the still-very-concerning rise of Jewish anti-Zionism in our current post-October 7 moment. Jewish history leaves no doubt as to who will be vindicated and who will not: In the future, no one is going to say, “if only I’d listened to Peter Beinart.”

And so the self-humiliation ritual that Ezra Klein put himself through at the New York Times over the past week—in which he defended anti-American anti-Semite Hasan Piker’s inclusion in Democratic Party politics, only to have Piker reaffirm his Jew-hatred and his fanatical worship of those who murder American civilians—evinces outrage that melts into pity. We’ll send you a postcard from the future, Ezra.

Judaism is indestructible, which is why the destruction of the holy temple, at a time when it was the center and anchor of the religious aspect of Jewish peoplehood, still has millions of Jews around to mourn it. The best future anti-Zionists can hope for is to be a memory, to have been something that we vaguely recall.

Where do the Jews who aren’t anti-Zionist but who are easily cowed by anti-Zionists fall in this equation? They are ripe for an education. The Jews did not keep their status as the eternal people by voting against bulldozers for Israel, as several Jewish Democratic senators did this week. They seem to have forgotten that, just as they themselves will soon be forgotten.

When Jabotinsky was demobilized after the war, he recounted telling his fellow Jewish Legionnaires the following:

“Far away, in your home, you will one day read glorious news, of a free Jewish life in a free Jewish country—of factories and universities, of farms and theaters, perhaps of MPs and ministers. … Then you shall stand up, walk to the mirror, and look yourself proudly in the face … and salute yourself—for ’tis you who have made it.”

That was in 1918, 30 years before the rebirth of the State of Israel. Some people have an easier time seeing the future than others. It’s usually those who have a better grasp on the past.
Jonathan Tobin: What do the Democrats want from Israel?
Indeed, liberal writer Jonathan Chait was not far off the mark when he wrote in The Atlantic of the fear that Democratic officeholders have of a party base that has fallen under the spell of anti-Israel hatemongers like podcaster Hasan Piker.

Republicans may have their own problem with a similar antisemitic set, including Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Alex Jones and enablers like Megyn Kelly. But Democrats who don’t wish to bend the knee to their intersectional left-wing base are in a very different position than the GOP. The leader of the Republicans—Trump—had no problem kicking them out of the party and his MAGA movement for the offense of opposing the war on Iran and alliance with Israel. He did so not only because he isn’t the type to take orders from someone like Carlson, who is more of a Mar-a-Lago court jester than a policy adviser. He could do so with impunity, secure in the knowledge that whatever inroads the Israel-bashers and Jew-haters have made among young voters, the overwhelming majority of his supporters approve of his stances.

Senate Democrats, most of whom came into office pledging their undying support for the Jewish state, don’t have that luxury. Indeed, as Chait writes, they are on the verge of losing their party to the likes of Piker, as well as the academic, pop-culture and media elites who, as we’ve learned from their pushback against calls to isolate someone who hates America as well as Israel and the Jews, largely agree with him.

Chait’s proposed solution to the problem is to follow the path of the 40 Senate Democrats who are now on record backing a proposal that would disarm Israel in the middle of a war. He says they have choices. One is to abandon Israel and hold onto office. The other is to stick to the principles that got most of them elected in the first place—and be defeated in a future primary by an Israel-hating and antisemitic Democratic Socialist who will steer the party toward the hard left. It also means a Democratic Party in which members of the left-wing congressional “Squad” that includes Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), along with fellow Marxist New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, are no longer on the margins but in control.

They know he’s right because, as he put it, they can all read polls. And so, they are shifting their principles to accommodate the new ideological alignment toward people for whom one Jewish state on the planet is one too many. And if that means leaving Israel without the weapons and means to defend itself against its genocidal regional foes, that’s just too bad.

Were the Democrats who changed their votes in the last year to get in sync with the new fashionable antisemitic wing of their party—such as Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Ruben Gallego (D-N.J.), Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.)—to admit to this, it would be disgraceful enough. But what’s truly awful about their stand is the disingenuous defenses of their position. They claim that they still support Israel, but think its democratically elected government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has engaged in reckless and needlessly brutal behavior by waging war on Iran, in addition to its terrorist allies in Gaza and Lebanon.

Missing from their hypocritical speeches is any mention of what they really expect from an Israeli government. Even Chait, who also claims to be a “liberal Zionist” disenchanted with Netanyahu but not Israel itself, had to acknowledge that the Jewish state has no current peace partner. At some point, even those who are willfully ignorant about events in the Middle East have to take notice of the fact that Palestinian Arabs don’t want a two-state solution, which liberal Americans still seem to think is the only answer to the conflict. Unlike them, the overwhelming majority of Israelis have decided to accept that Palestinians are saying “no” to any outcome other than the destruction of the Jewish state and the genocide of its people.

The atrocities in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, helped cement that viewpoint.
Jewish Democratic disillusionment deepens over party’s direction
The Democratic shift on Israel policy was on full, dramatic display on the Senate floor on Wednesday night as 40 of 47 Senate Democrats voted for at least one of two resolutions to block U.S. shipments of bulldozers and bombs to Israel.

The votes left many pro-Israel Democrats shocked and disillusioned — exemplified in the muted statements, if any, on the vote from key pro-Israel groups — and is being seen by some as the marker of a new era of Democratic policy on Israel, in which critics of Israel are firmly in the party mainstream.

“It’s yet another data point that the bipartisan consensus [in support of Israel] is, at least at the moment, no longer,” a former Biden administration official told Jewish Insider on Thursday. “Democrats think it’s politically advantageous to take these votes that would have been completely out-of-bounds just two-and-a-half years ago. … It’s deeply concerning if you care about the relationship, if you care about the security of [Israel]. But that’s the state of play at the moment, I think until or unless there’s an event that changes the trajectory.”

Abe Foxman, the former head of the Anti-Defamation League, said the vote highlights the “progressive socialist wing” of the Democratic Party’s increasing takeover. “This is a calamity for the Democratic Party, if it will not be contained and stopped,” Foxman told JI. “What’s also disturbing to me is that this litmus test is being first administered to every Jewish candidate.”

He added that the votes send a terrible message to U.S. allies beyond Israel that the U.S. can’t be relied upon.

Pro-Israel Democrats who spoke to JI said the votes came about as a combination of several factors: They served as a proxy for the war in Iran that nearly all Democrats oppose, but also were a signal of opposition to Israel’s operations in Lebanon, settler attacks and settlement expansion in the West Bank, the war in Gaza and — to a substantial degree — the Democratic enmity that has been growing for years toward Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his government and his alignment with President Donald Trump and Republicans.

And lawmakers are also responding to the growing progressive pressure, fueled by two years of imagery from the war in Gaza, amplified by social media platforms that boosted antisemitic content, that has changed the politics around Israel in a “really dramatic way” in the Democratic Party, the former Biden administration official said.

“Those [resolutions], at this moment in time, were just a proxy for real discomfort with the direction of the Trump-Netanyahu relationship in this war, which is not the right reason to vote for these,” another former Biden administration official told JI. “I understand the [vote to block] bulldozers at this moment in time. [Withholding] the munitions — I think it’s really, really troubling.”


Yehuda Kurtzer calls on American Jews to embrace reality of ‘political homelessness’
Amid a surge in antisemitism across the political spectrum, many American Jews have described feeling a growing sense of isolation. But for Yehuda Kurtzer, president of the Shalom Hartman Institute, being “politically homeless” is not a crisis to be solved, but rather a position to be embraced.

“I don’t think some measure of political homelessness is a fundamentally bad thing,” Kurtzer said on Thursday while speaking alongside Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington. “I think Americans have become hyper-partisan in ways that reflect that partisan political identity has become part of our identities in ways that are not healthy for Americans.”

Kurtzer and Goldberg sat in conversation at an event focused on American Jewry ahead of the upcoming 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States.

Kurtzer argued that hyper-partisanship is particularly dangerous for the Jewish community, noting that Jews “believe in the notion that we are tethered to other people regardless of what they believe.” He said American Jews “should take that same ethos and apply it to what it means to be an American as well.”

“Choosing a side has never worked for Jews because when you get out of the hall to power, you will be identified as the exemplar of that political attitude that can now be destroyed,” Kurtzer said.

“Now we’re stuck as an American Jewish community between an illiberal argument on the right, which is currently in power, and an illiberalism of the left,” Kurtzer continued. “We don’t have a choice as American Jews but to fight for the very liberal framework that resists the authoritarianism of the right and resists the authoritarianism of the left and insists that this is the only way we can make it work for ourselves.”

This tension is especially acute on university campuses, Kurtzer said, where he believes “progressivism” has played “a major role in shutting down the pluralistic discourse that a university campus is supposed to inhabit.”

“I think there’s an immense amount of shame that travels for American Jews, especially for young people, about association with Israel,” Kurtzer said. “At a moment like this, it’s very hard to get past that shame with even rational arguments.”

However, Kurtzer suggested that young Jews may be uniquely positioned to model a “healthy political alternative” by demonstrating how to navigate complex discourse. He noted that since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks, many Jews feel “a greater sense of attachment to the Jewish community and Jewish lives and even the State of Israel.”

He argued that American Jews must “find a way to articulate the thickness of our relationship to Israel and the Jewish people that is not perpetually under the test of what the Israeli government does today and tomorrow.”


The image that made Hungarian Jews breathe a sigh of relief
The powerful image will be warmly welcomed by Hungarian Jews and in Israel: Pรฉter Magyar, Hungary’s prime minister elect, wearing a kippah as he carefully places a stone under a wall of names of victims at the Budapest Holocaust Memorial Centre on April 16.

The ceremony commemorated Hungary’s Holocaust memorial day, the anniversary of the start of the ghettoisation of rural Jews in 1944, before their deportation to Auschwitz.

Just four days earlier, Magyar’s centre-right Tisza party, which mainly campaigned against corruption, won a landslide two-thirds majority, ending 16 years of rule by Viktor Orbรกn and his Fidesz party.

There was relief among Hungarian Jews and in Jerusalem that the far-right Mi Hazรกnk Mozgalom (Our Homeland Movement) only won six seats, banishing the “nightmare scenario” of a coalition where a victorious but weakened Fidesz would be propped-up by the extremists.

Magyar’s victory was greeted with delirious joy across the political spectrum, from left to right, including by many Jewish voters. His tightly-controlled campaign with its comparative lack of detailed policy pronouncements allowed voters to project their own desires onto a political tabula rasa.

The question now in Jerusalem and Budapest, where most Hungarian Jews live, is where will Magyar take the country’s relationship with Israel and its own Jewish community. His attendance at the Holocaust memorial event, together with Anita Orbรกn (no relation), the future foreign minister, will be reassuring.

Earlier in the week at his first press conference, Magyar emphasised the importance of the Hungarian-Israeli relationship, the safety and security of the country’s Jewish community and zero-tolerance of anti-Semitism.

He said: “We have a very strong Jewish community living in Hungary, one of the largest, thankfully, in security, safety, and peace and zero tolerance in Hungary to all forms of antisemitism”.
France’s controversial ‘anti-Semitism’ law withdrawn ahead of debate
Supporters of a draft law – based on the idea that rising anti-Semitism in the country with Europe’s largest Jewish population is grounded in an “obsessive” hatred of Israel – withdrew the bill hours before it was set to be debated on the floor of the National Assembly.

But though France’s left celebrated the retreat as a vindication of weeks of mobilisation against a bill that critics say would muzzle legitimate criticism of Israel and possibly even fuel the very anti-Semitism it is supposed to fight against, the government has made it clear that it will reintroduce a similar law – the details of which are not yet known – in June.

If passed, the law in its current form would have broadened the definition of “apology for terrorism” – defending or justifying terrorist acts, considered an offence in France – to include speech that “implicitly” justifies or downplays acts deemed terrorist. The law would also make it illegal to call for the “destruction” of any country recognised by France, punishable by five years in prison.

The draft law’s preamble leaves little doubt which country the authors have in mind.

“Today, anti-Jewish hatred in our country is fuelled by an obsessive hatred of Israel, whose very existence is regularly delegitimised and criminalised,” it reads.

“This hatred of the State of Israel is now inseparable from hatred of Jews,” the law says.

The proposed law – dubbed the “Yadan law” after lawmaker Caroline Yadan, who introduced it – has split the National Assembly. Critics say it is a misguided attempt to crack down on anti-Semitism that could backfire, possibly even fuelling further hatred against the Jewish community.

A petition on the official site of the National Assembly protesting the draft bill had garnered more than 700,000 signatures by Thursday – well above the half a million signatures needed for a petition to be debated before the National Assembly.
Trump’s antisemitism envoy says US will bar World Cup attendees tied to antisemitism abroad
Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun, the US special envoy for monitoring and combating antisemitism, said this week that the United States will bar individuals from attending the World Cup who are accused of fostering antisemitism in their home countries.

“The president and the secretary of state have made it perfectly clear that people who want to sow discord in this country are not welcome here,” Kaploun told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on Friday. “People who want to bring their brand of hate to the United States with antisemitism are not welcome. Coming to this country is a privilege. It’s not a right.”

Kaploun’s comments on a potential ban were first reported by Euractiv, which said he told a European Jewish Association conference in Brussels that the United States was “holding countries accountable for ministers who are saying things, and they are not being allowed into the country.”

But Kaploun dismissed Euractiv’s report that the United States would institute a ban specifically on European politicians, instead saying that “everybody is judged as an individual.”

“If there is a minister that is promoting, you know, there are people who are promoting right-wing antisemitism or left-wing antisemitism,” Kaploun said. “Either way, coming to the United States is a privilege, not a right, and everybody is judged on making sure that they’re going to be coming to this country, that they’re going to not ferment hate.”

The FIFA World Cup, which will be hosted in cities across the United States, Mexico, and Canada from June 11 to July 19, will be the organization’s largest event to date, featuring 48 national teams.
Palestinian officials denied entry to Canada for FIFA Congress
Three officials from the Palestinian Football Association have been denied visas to enter Canada ahead of a pre-World Cup meeting of FIFA member associations in Vancouver later this month, according to a report in The Guardian on Friday.

The British newspaper reported that the officials—including Palestinian Football Association President Jibril Rajoub—had planned to attend the annual FIFA Congress scheduled for April 30, which is considered an informal opening event for the 2026 World Cup to be hosted jointly by the United States, Canada and Mexico.

Rajoub is also president of the Palestine Olympic Committee and secretary-general of the Fatah Central Committee.

According to The Guardian, the Palestinian association asked FIFA to intervene with Canadian authorities after visa applications were rejected. Canadian immigration officials said visa decisions are made on a case-by-case basis and declined to comment on specific applications.

The Palestinian delegation had also hoped to raise concerns at the Congress regarding Israeli soccer clubs playing matches in Judea and Samaria, an issue previously reviewed by FIFA, which concluded in March that it would take no action, citing the territory’s unresolved legal status under international law, the report said.

The visa refusals come amid broader concerns about travel access for national delegations and supporters ahead of the expanded 48-team World Cup tournament scheduled to begin on June 11, 2026, in Mexico City.
Palestinian advocacy group’s attempt to prosecute UK/Israeli national thrown out by court
An attempt by Palestinian legal campaigners to bring a private prosecution against a British-Israeli dual citizen who returned to Israel on 8 October 2023 to rejoin his former IDF unit as a reservist has been thrown out by Westminster Magistrates’ Court, with the judge describing the attempt as “legally flawed, evidentially deficient, and procedurally defective”.

In a case heard in private at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on 12 March, an attempt by the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians to issue a summons against the individual in question was dismissed by a judge, who scathingly described the attempt as “an abuse of the process of the court, driven by an improper motive and facilitated by serious breaches of the duty of candour”.

In further comments from Senior District Judge Paul Goldspring, the ICPJ’s “dominant motive” was described as “the advancement of a political and ideological agenda, not the pursuit of justice for a specific criminal act.” The ICJP’s “use of the criminal courts as a platform for political posturing” was further described as “an abuse of process.”

As well as ruling that the ICJP has misinterpreted the law they were trying to invoke in support of their argument, the court also identified that despite being fully aware of statements from multiple governments and prosecution guidance from the CPS which might contradict the ICJP’s attempt to bring a private prosecution, the organisation had not informed the court of these. Such omissions were separately described as “a serious and inexcusable omission” and that there was “no credible explanation for this failure”.

Other behaviours that the court took issue with included the fact that “the applicant [ICJP] failed to disclose the deep connections between itself and Bindmans LLP” and that “the supposed expert witness…is part of an ICJP whatsapp group. This connection was not disclosed in her expert declaration or in the application.”
UK police search near Israel’s London Embassy after threat of drone attack with ‘dangerous substances’
British police said on Friday they were investigating a security incident near the Israeli Embassy in London after a terror group reported online that it had targeted the premises with drones carrying “dangerous substances.”

London’s Metropolitan Police officers were seen wearing protective clothing while searching a park near Israel’s Embassy for suspicious objects, with the Foreign Ministry stressing that all embassy workers were safe and that the embassy was not attacked.

“There is an increased police presence in Kensington Gardens and officers are assessing a number of discarded items,” said Scotland Yard, calling the protective suits a “precaution.”

“We do not believe there to be any increased public safety risk at this stage,” the Metropolitan Police continued.

The police added that their counterterrorism force is “aware” of a video posted Thursday night, “in which a group claims to have targeted the nearby Embassy of Israel with drones carrying dangerous substances.”

The newly founded pro-Iranian terror group Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiyya, or Movement of the Companions of the Right Hand of Islam, had posted a video that included footage of drones along with two figures dressed in protective clothing and a message that the Israeli embassy was being targeted.

The group has claimed responsibility for a spate of attacks across Europe on American, Israeli and Jewish targets, including an arson attack that destroyed several ambulances belonging to the Jewish volunteer emergency service Hatzola, which were parked near a synagogue in the Golders Green area of north London.


Fourth person charged over alleged arson on Hatzola ambulances
A fourth person has been charged after four Jewish community ambulances were torched in north-west London.

Judex Atshatshi, 18, a British national of Dagenham, east London, has been charged with one count of arson with intent to damage property and being reckless as to whether life would be endangered, the Crown Prosecution Service said.

He is expected to appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Saturday.

The ambulances from Hatzola, a volunteer-led ambulance service operating in the Golders Green area, were set on fire in the early hours of March 23, causing gas canisters stored in the vehicles to explode and resulting in £1 million worth of damage, the court has previously heard.

Atshatshi was arrested on April 16 after counter terrorism detectives attended two addresses in east London, the Metropolitan Police said.

Another 18-year-old arrested on the same day on suspicion of conspiracy to commit arson with intent to endanger life has been released on bail until a date in July.

Two British men, Hamza Iqbal, 20, and Rehan Khan, 19, from Leyton, east London; and a 17-year-old boy, of dual British-Pakistani nationality, from Walthamstow; are each charged with one count of arson being reckless as to whether life would be endangered and were remanded in custody earlier this month.
Dramatic moment armed man leapt up Israeli embassy fence shown in court
The dramatic moment a migrant leapt up a fence and allegedly tried to break into London’s Israeli embassy armed with two knives has been shown in court.

Kuwait-born Abdullah Albadri, 34, is accused of planning an attack on the embassy in Kensington, west London, to “exact revenge” for the killing of children in Gaza.

On being detained by officers, the defendant allegedly said: “Why are you stopping from making crimes?”

On Friday, jurors were shown CCTV footage tracking Albadri’s hour-long journey from Kilburn in north-west London to the embassy on 28 April last year.

The defendant walked towards Kensington Palace Gardens wearing dark sunglasses, a dark top, blue jeans and white trainers with his head wrapped in a distinctive red and white headscarf.

Jurors were told there was a continual police presence in the area because it is the location of several embassies.

Just before 6pm, Albadri made a gesture like a salute before he jumped up an 8ft high metal fence as he allegedly tried to enter the embassy grounds.

Two armed diplomatic protection officers then reached up and grabbed the defendant, pulling him down to the ground.
Cries of ‘shame’ as Green candidate brands Israel apartheid state at Jewish hustings
A Green Party local election candidate has said she is “really sorry” that many in the Jewish community fear the rise of Zack Polanski’s party because of widespread antisemitism claims, insisting “vetting has happened, but things slip through”.

Haringey Green Party candidate Jo Kuper, who confirmed she is herself Jewish, was greeted by cries of “shame” from parts of the audience after she branded Israel an “apartheid state”, adding: “You can shout shame on you as much as you like, but I’d say it was antisemitic to chase down people who have different views to you.”

Kuper joined Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat, and Reform UK candidates at a packed Jewish Hustings event organised by the Board of Deputies and London Jewish Forum at Muswell Hill United Synagogue.

The debate began in a calmer fashion, as all the candidates introduced themselves, and remained largely civil throughout until, discussing issues such as local housing in some detail, but all of that changed once questions about Green’s antisemitism issues, and on Israel were raised from the audience.

Journalist Nicole Lampert, a member of the north London shul, said that she had been left “terrified” by Greens ahead of the May 7 elections, with so many clear examples of antisemitism amongst the party’s candidates.
Why is this Green candidate sharing an anti-semitic post?
A terror attack on a synagogue was “not anti-semitism” but was “revenge” for Israel “murdering people,” according to a video promoted by a Green Party council candidate.

Sabine Mairey, a Green candidate for Clapham Town ward in Lambeth, south London, posted the video, by David Spevak, an American Jewish anti-Zionist, on her Facebook page last month. It’s still there at the time of writing.

Mairey was used by the Lambeth Green Party to launch its election manifesto this week, and is quoted in the party’s press release. The video on her Facebook page is posted with the caption “Ramming a synagogue isn’t anti-semitism. It’s revenge.” She cannot claim that she posted it without knowing what it says.

Mairey is the third Green council candidate – and the second in Lambeth – to be exposed by The Spectator for sharing extremist views in the past five days. On Sunday, we revealed that Ifhat Shaheen, a Green council candidate in Hackney, defended the 7/10 attacks, suggested that Israel is harvesting organs from Palestinians “to help alter [the] DNA of Zionists to claim land,” and asked whether “Zionist funding” was behind the racist Tommy Robinson marches.

On Wednesday, we revealed that Saiqa Ali, a Green candidate in Streatham, part of Lambeth, posted a picture of the Earth encircled and choked by a giant serpent with the Star of David printed on its skin; wrote “Long live the resistance” next to a picture of a masked fighter with a rifle, a string of bullets and what looks like a Hamas headband; said that Britain’s government includes too many “Zionists Jews;” and opined that Donald Trump is “owned by Jews.”

The Communities Secretary, Steve Reed, who is Streatham’s MP, has said that the Green leader, Zack Polanski, “must act now and remove [Ali]. There is a synagogue in the ward. Streatham deserves better.” The council leader, Claire Holland, made the same call and noted that the Greens had refused to condemn Ali’s views. Later yesterday, after offering a no-comment response to our enquiry about Shaheen, and completely ignoring our enquiry about Ali, the Greens did start telling other journalists that Ali’s posts “are not the views of the Green Party.” Still no actual condemnation, though, and as of Thursday night, though, she is still their official candidate.
Polanski’s problem: how the Greens chose Gaza over the environment | The Edition



Tikvah: Is This the End of Political Islam? | Hussein Aboubakr Mansour & Dan Schueftan | Special Briefing
Would the collapse of Iran’s regime also spell the collapse of political Islam?

In this special briefing, Middle East expert Hussein Aboubakr Mansour and the Israeli security expert Dan Schueftan, assess the ideological and strategic consequences of the Islamic Republic’s unravelling. Following the assassination of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the degradation of Iran’s nuclear program, and the destruction of its proxy network, the question is no longer only what happens to Iran—but what happens to the ideas it has represented for nearly 50 years.

Together with Jonathan Silver, Mansour and Schueftan explore whether the defeat of an ideological state can reshape the political imagination of a region—or whether its energy will persist in new and more fragmented forms.

This conversation offers a sober assessment of what may come next: not resolution, but a new phase of instability, competition, and ideological transformation across the Middle East and beyond.

Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
4:05 Building the Iranian Economy and the IRGC’s Power
10:05 The Islamic Republic as a Theopolitical Proposition
15:00 Ideological Roots: Hegel, Marx, and Modern Philosophy
20:25 Iran’s State Model as the Core of Islamism
22:45 The Iranian Sectarian Narrative
25:20 Arab Nationalism as a Civilizational Turning Point
29:35 Residues of Islamism: Technology and Future Threats
32:35 Past and Present: The Narrative Producing Radicalism
39:57 The Question of Resilience
43:09 Can the Arab World Adapt to Modern Challenges?
47:00 How is the Islamic World Evolving?
50:15 Foreign Funding of Radicalism
52:50 Israel's Strategic Deterrence
56:45 How Political Cultures Can Change
58:17 From Solution to Response

Q&A
1:00:00 What's at Stake in Hormuz
1:02:45 Is the Future of Islamism in the West?


3 Martini Lunch: The Surge of the Anti-Israel Democrats
Christopher J. Scalia of the American Enterprise Institute is in for Jim Geraghty on the Friday 3 Martini Lunch. Today, Chris and Greg discuss allegations that the media could have reported on the Swalwell scandal as early as 2019, the "Michigan Mamdani: surging in the Michigan U.S. Senate race, and signs that Yale University may finally realize it lost its way.

First, Chris and Greg react to a longtime Democratic activist claiming Politico was preparing a 2019 report on Eric Swalwell’s alleged sexual misconduct while he was running for president. But after Swalwell dropped out of the race, the story was never published, even though he remained in Congress.

Next, they shudder as hostility towards Israel is now clearly the popular and safest position among Democrats. Abdul El-Sayed, dubbed the Michigan Mamdani, is now tied for the lead in the Michigan Democratic U.S. Senate primary. They also note that every Democratic senator rumored to be considering a presidential run just voted against military aid to Israel.

Then, Chris welcomes a new report from a special Yale University commission outlining where the school has gone wrong on admissions, academics, free speech, soaring tuition costs and more. They hope it marks the beginning of a return to sanity in higher education, but will actions follow the words?


Comedy Cellar USA: From Cranks on the Fringe to Tucker Carlson: How Ideas Go Off the Rails with Jamie Kirchick
Jamie Kirchick joins the crew for a sharp discussion on ideology, hypocrisy and why smart people can still fall for bad ideas.

A wide-ranging, no-filter conversation about Iran, nuclear tensions, global risk—and the dangers of antisemitism. They discuss everyone from Tucker Carlson and Daryl Cooper to Bryon Noem. This episode addresses serious geopolitical stakes and is part political analysis, part philosophical sparring and part classic around the table repartee.

Jamie Kirchick is a journalist and the New York Times-bestselling author of Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington and The End of Europe: Dictators, Demagogues, and the Coming Dark Age. He is a contributing opinion writer to the New York Times and a writer at large for Air Mail.


Michigan Senate Hopeful Abdul El-Sayed Blamed US for 'Creating' Terrorism: 'What Happens When People Are in Pain?'
Abdul El-Sayed, the left-wing candidate running in the hotly contested Michigan Democratic Senate primary, suggested at a July 2025 campaign event that terrorists commit "heinous act[s]" because they feel "pain and frustration and a level of lack of agency" due to "hypocritical" U.S. actions that are "creating pain," video footage exclusively obtained by the Washington Free Beacon shows.

El-Sayed—who is tied with state lawmaker Mallory McMorrow at the top of the Democratic primary, according to a new Emerson College poll that found both candidates with 24 percent support—made the remarks at a campaign stop in South Haven, Mich., after a voter asked him how he would "deal with hostages and terrorism as a U.S. senator."

"I think the approach that we've often taken with terrorism has been to figure out how to leverage the might of the U.S. military to go in and root out, right, certain terrorist organizations, et cetera. And where that's necessary, that's necessary," El-Sayed responded. "But I also think we need to be curious about why those things happen in the first place. Like, what drives somebody to want to commit such a heinous act?"

El-Sayed went on to say that, as a former public health professor, he is "a student of people's pain," a perspective he tries to apply to politics. "Like, what, what happens when people are in pain?" he asked.

The candidate's remarks are a throwback to the so-called root causes debate that unfolded in the years after the 9/11 attacks, when many academics and pundits argued that poverty and desperation across the globe were a major cause of anti-American terrorism. Others pointed out that terrorists were typically educated and well-off and that the argument overlooked the centrality of deep-seated ideological motivations.


Progressive, J Street-endorsed activist, who accused Israel of genocide, wins NJ special House election
Analilia Mejia, a progressive activist who has accused Israel of committing “genocide” in Gaza, won the special election in New Jersey on Thursday evening for the U.S. House of Representatives seat vacated by Mikie Sherrill, who was elected state governor in November.

With 94% of the votes counted, the J Street-endorsed Mejia received 77,856 votes (59.5%) while her Republican opponent, Joe Hathaway, former mayor of Randolph, N.J., garnered 52,324 votes (40%) in the special election for the state’s 11th Congressional District, according to the Associated Press.

Hathaway conceded the election on Thursday evening.

Mejia, whom Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) backed, defeated former congressman Tom Malinowski, who had been considered the favorite, in the February primary for the seat. The United Democracy Project, a super PAC affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, spent $2.3 million on negative advertising against Malinowski.

On April 10, Mejia stated that “Congress must end the blank check for Trump and Netanyahu. The United States must include Lebanon in a real ceasefire and stop giving Israel a blank check to escalate.” She also said that she was honored to receive J Street’s endorsement and that “we can and must be critical of the Israeli government, call out the war crimes committed by Netanyahu and stand with Palestinian communities in their pursuit of peace and dignity.”


'Violent' pro-Palestine activist wrote he wanted to 'establish Islamic State in Britain', court hears
A 'violent' pro-Palestine activist wrote that he wanted to 'establish Islamic State in Britain' and posted instructional videos online about how to use grenades to kill Israeli soldiers, a court heard.

Feras Al-Jayoosi, 38, is on trial at Winchester Crown Court this week accused of three counts of terrorism relating to posts on X, then known as Twitter, in 2022.

He used an account with the handle 'Jihad4Palestine' to share 'violent Islamic ideology', it was heard, including images of leaders associated with the 9/11 attacks.

Al-Jayoosi also told police that he was 'on the fence' about al-Qaeda founder Osama Bin Laden during an interview.

He denies all three counts of disseminating terrorist publications.

Described in court as an 'adherent of violent Islamic ideology', Al-Jayoosi commented on posts regarding the views on Jewish people of several world leaders - including Tony Blair and George Bush.

He also allegedly commented 'Allah is the greatest' on a post following the stabbing of Salman Rushdie in August 2022.

His bio read: 'Arm the Palestinian resistance. Establish Islamic State in Britain. Allahu Akbar. Abolish the monarchy and Free Palestine. #Caliphate #NotMyKing.'
Palestine Action website targets the Foreign Office for ‘action’
The government has told tech firms to get a grip on extremist online content after a Palestine Action site flagged the Foreign Office as a “target” for activists to “take action”.

The site, which features a so-called “target map”, names organisations it claims are connected to Elbit Systems UK and provides location details alongside messaging urging users to “find a target and take action”.

The development comes after Palestine Action was proscribed under UK terrorism legislation, alongside the Maniacs Murder Cult and the Russian Imperialist Movement.

A Home Office spokesperson told Jewish News: “We are cracking down on terrorist groups that use online content to spread propaganda and incite violence.

“We work closely with technology companies to support the swift removal of unlawful terrorist content, including material linked to proscribed organisations.”

Following the ban, the Home Office has written to major tech platforms reminding them of their obligations under the Terrorism Acts 2000 and 2006 to identify and remove content likely to be unlawful.


Leader of More Perfect University liked posts justifying Oct. 7 terror attacks
The leader of a newly launched progressive campus advocacy group affiliated with More Perfect Union, a prominent left-wing media organization, liked social media posts justifying the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, and expressed similar sentiments in at least one now-deleted X comment.

Elise Joshi, a Gen Z activist and influencer, is taking the helm of a new campus organization, More Perfect University, that is casting itself as a populist left rival to Turning Point USA, the right-wing advocacy group that has played a key role in pulling younger voters to President Donald Trump and promoting conservative values at colleges and universities across the country.

More Perfect University, which was announced on Wednesday, is the creation of More Perfect Union, founded in 2021 by Faiz Shakir, a senior advisor to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). In a splashy video, Joshi said the new group will extend More Perfect Union’s “fight to campuses,” vowing to equip students “with the tools to unrig our broken economic system” and stressing the “responsibility to speak truth to power falls on us.”

But while Shakir has long been known as a vocal critic of Israel, his own record of commentary on such issues does not appear to have gone as far as Joshi, whose past social media activity has notably sought to excuse the violence perpetrated by Hamas.

In one since-removed X comment from Oct. 7, 2023, for instance, Joshi suggested the Hamas attacks that killed 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostages were an act of justified resistance linked to a broader movement including violent efforts to oppose slavery, apartheid and colonialism.

“It seems a lot of people forgot how slavery abolition, South Africa’s apartheid, and every independence movement against colonization was achieved,” Joshi wrote in the post, a screenshot of which was reviewed by Jewish Insider.
Qatar Hires Crisis Management Firms To ‘Address Public Misconceptions’ About Funding For American Universities, Records Show
Qatar has retained two Washington, D.C.-based crisis management firms to "address public misconceptions" about its funding of U.S. universities in the wake of high-profile scrutiny from Congress, federal disclosures reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon show.

The Qatar Foundation, a state-run nonprofit Doha uses to peddle influence in American higher education, hired Washington Media Group at a rate of $40,000 per month to provide "strategic communications support" that "enhance public understanding of its longstanding academic partnerships with U.S. universities located in Education City, Qatar," according to the firm’s March 30 federal disclosure registering it as a foreign agent.

"These efforts are intended to promote transparency, address public misconceptions, and support informed dialogue regarding the structure, history, and impact of these partnerships," the disclosure states.

Washington Media Group describes itself as a "female and minority owned company" that "crafts solutions to high-profile crises" and "protects and repairs reputations." Its CEO and president—and the agent listed on the contract with the Qatar Foundation—is Crystal Patterson, who has a long history of running digital strategy and communications for Democrats, such as Hillary Clinton, former Sen. Edward Kennedy, and former Rep. Tim Ryan, and worked for the left-wing Center for American Progress focusing on "Immigration and Diversity Policy," according to her bio.

She's also a graduate of Northwestern University, which boasts a Doha campus (NU-Q) that holds a contract with Qatar forbidding its students and faculty from criticizing the Qatari regime.
She Wrote An Anti-Israel Op-Ed. Trump Moved On Her Visa.
Turkish Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk, who was held in ICE detention last year after her visa was revoked over alleged “activities in support of Hamas,” has returned home to Turkey following a legal settlement with the United States.

The State Department canceled Ozturk’s student visa after she co-authored an op-ed in her college newspaper calling on Tufts to recognize the “Palestinian genocide” and to divest from companies with ties to Israel.

In March 2025, ICE agents arrested Ozturk while walking on a street in Somerville, Massachusetts. She spent six weeks in federal custody before a judge ordered her release.

The government appealed the decision, but the case ultimately ended in a settlement after Ozturk completed her PhD in child study and human development.

Under the agreement, Ozturk returned to Turkey “without further interference by the Department of Homeland Security,” according to the ACLU.

“The time stolen from me by the U.S. government belongs not just to me, but to the children and youth I have dedicated my life to advocating for,” she said in a statement released by the ACLU. “With them in mind, I am choosing to return home as planned to continue my career as a woman scholar without losing more time to the state-imposed violence and hostility I have experienced in the United States – all for nothing more than co-signing an op-ed advocating for Palestinian rights.”

The resolution is welcome news to the Trump administration, which has taken a more aggressive approach toward foreign students involved in anti-Israel activism.

“Attending elite colleges and universities in the United States is a privilege afforded to foreign students who respect our values and follow our laws,” a Justice Department official said in a statement to Politico. “We will continue to seek the deportation of any foreign student who abuses their opportunity to study in America by engaging in vile antisemitism, harassment, or other illegal behavior.”

Ozturk’s detention became a flashpoint in President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement efforts and emphasis on stopping antisemitism on college campuses.
MPs and Peers accuse university of double standards over keffiyeh tea towel suspension
A university that suspended an undergraduate student for referring to a pro-Palestinian student’s keffiyeh as a “tea towel” is facing accusations of double standards and disproportionate punishment, following a letter signed by MPs and peers.

Former cabinet ministers are among a cross-party group of senior parliamentarians who have written to Royal Holloway, University of London, raising serious concerns about the treatment of Brodie Mitchell.

The incident occurred last September at the fresher’s fair, where Mitchell, a pro-Israel second-year student, was allegedly called a “wannabe Jew” by the President of the Friends of Palestine Society. The society president is also claimed to have asked him where his Jewish “hat” was.

It was in response to these remarks that Mitchell, who is not Jewish himself, referred to the keffiyeh worn by the society president as a “tea towel”.

Despite apologising for his remarks, Mitchell was suspended by the university, placed under investigation, and banned from campus for seven weeks.

The 20-year-old was also reported to Surrey Police and accused of a hate crime. A file has since been passed to the Crown Prosecution Service, meaning he could face criminal charges.

Mitchell is being supported by the Free Speech Union, an advocacy group which claims to defend the right of people to express themselves without fear of punishment or persecution.

“This response is not only completely disproportionate but is evidence of a failure to exercise common sense. Universities ought to be able to distinguish between serious misconduct and heated political interactions. Punishing students for engaging in robust exchanges about contentious issues will inevitably have a chilling effect on free speech”, say the parliamentarians including Claire Coutinho, the former energy secretary, Sir John Whittingdale, the former culture secretary and Tom Tugendhat, the former security minister.


Polish town’s new ‘information center’ denies murders of Jews by local Poles in 1941
In the Polish town of Jedwabne, where historians agree that townspeople killed most of their Jewish neighbors during World War II, a brand-new “information center” denies the crime.

The information center is housed in two shipping containers that stand taller than anything else at the memorial site. On the side of one container, in Polish, are the words “The earth doesn’t lie” — a slogan promoted by those who believe that exhuming the site would exonerate the Poles of Jedwabne.

The containers were installed earlier this month and celebrated with a ribbon-cutting ceremony shared online by Wojciech Sumlinski, a right-wing Polish activist. Last year, he took credit for placing seven boulders near Jedwabne’s official memorial, bearing plaques that deny Polish responsibility and claim that Jews historically conspired against Poles.

“We call it a denial museum, because that’s what it is,” Abraham Waserstein, whose grandfather Szmul Wasersztein was one of the few survivors of the 1941 massacre, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency about the new installation. “Putting these containers in Jedwabne [is] further desecrating the only remnants of Jewish community left there, our family’s legacy there.”

Waserstein, a law student at Duke University, said he and his family have reached out to local advocates with the goal of removing the new pavilions. But they may be fighting an uphill battle: The boulders that Sumlinski installed last year remain at the site and can be seen in the footage he posted of the new additions.

Szmul Wasersztein was among a handful of Jews who escaped on July 10, 1941, when Polish residents rounded up and killed hundreds of their Jewish neighbors, mostly by burning them alive in a barn.

Wasersztein’s deposition in 1945 was key to recording the Jedwabne massacre and led to the convictions of 12 Polish residents in 1949. His testimony also formed the heart of “Neighbors,” a 2000 book by historian Jan Tomasz Gross that sparked intense national debate. The crimes of Jedwabne, rupturing historical narratives that centered solely on the victimhood and heroism of Poles under the Nazis, became a symbol of Polish complicity in the Holocaust.
French court rules antisemitism not a motive in nanny’s poisoning of Jewish family
A French appeals court ruled on Wednesday that a nanny from Algeria who was convicted of poisoning the Jewish family she worked for was not motivated by antisemitism.

The decision by the Versailles Court of Appeal comes months after the nanny, identified as Leรฏla Y., 42, was sentenced to two and a half years in prison by the Nanterre criminal court in December for attempting to poison the Jewish family she worked for with cleaning supplies.

During her arrest and a subsequent search of the home on Feb. 5, 2024, Leรฏla Y. told police, “Because they have money and power, I should never have worked for a Jewish woman; she only brought me trouble.”

Despite the nanny’s comments, the Nanterre court rejected the aggravating circumstance of antisemitism in the case, and the Versailles Court of Appeal ruled in its latest decision that the nanny’s remarks did not constitute antisemitic statements.

The family’s lawyers, Patrick Klugman and Sacha Ghozlan, decried the ruling in a press release, saying that they would seek to appeal the decision again.

“This decision makes judicial repression of antisemitism impossible and turns legal texts, meant to be protective, into mere useless scraps of paper,” Klugman and Ghozlan said. “Faced with such a decision, litigants risk losing all confidence in and protection from the judicial institution.”

The family’s lawyers also called on the French Minister of Justice and the National School for the Judiciary to “thoroughly review both initial and ongoing training of judges in combating racism and antisemitism,” and urged the prosecutor general to file an appeal “in the interest of society.”
Michigan man sentenced to seven years in foiled mass-casualty plot targeting Jews, LGBTQ community
Mack Davis, 23, of Owosso, Mich., was sentenced to seven years in federal prison for planning a mass-casualty attack against multiple targets, including synagogues, the U.S. Department of Justice announced on Thursday.

Davis pleaded guilty to a federal hate crime charge after authorities disrupted what prosecutors described as an attempted mass murder plot.

Police were first alerted to Davis when the Owosso Police Department responded to reports of gunfire into vehicles on June 17, 2024, and determined it “likely originated from Davis’s bedroom window,” according to the affidavit.

A subsequent search of his home uncovered an arsenal that included an illegally modified short-barreled rifle, a shotgun, hundreds of rounds of ammunition, a crossbow, bomb-making materials, tactical gear and knives. On one of the knives, Davis wrote a foul anti-gay slur on one side of the blade and “death to you all” and a swastika on the other side of the blade.

Police also discovered an Israeli flag on which he had written “kill Jews” and “death to you all” and drawn a swastika in the center of the Star of David.

Prosecutors said Davis had become “infatuated” with mass killers and spent months researching attacks, compiling weapons lists and surveilling potential targets. Those included a political party headquarters and a nearby bar he believed would be frequented by gay people, as well as other locations such as synagogues, churches, mosques, schools, hospitals and supermarkets.

He posted images of himself performing a Nazi salute and holding Mein Kampf, the Justice Department said. He also vandalized neighbors’ vehicles with anti-gay slurs and, leading up to the attack, fired about 60 rounds into nearby properties while test-firing a weapon, authorities said.


Argentina’s Milei to arrive in Israel on Sunday, his third trip in last three years
President Javier Milei will visit Israel on Sunday for talks with his close ally, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Argentina’s presidency said, as a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah took effect.

This will be the third visit to Israel as leader by the libertarian Milei, an ardent defender of the policies of both Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump.

Milei, who was raised in a Catholic family but studied Jewish scripture, has cheered the US-Israeli strikes on Iran.

Last month, he called Israel a “strategic ally” of Argentina with “shared values.”

He will meet Netanyahu at the Western Wall holy site in Jerusalem, which he also visited in February 2024 and June 2025, his office said.

Milei’s government recently expelled Tehran’s diplomatic envoy after Iran objected to Argentina calling the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization.

Iran’s foreign ministry accused Argentina of being “partners in crimes committed and on the wrong side of history.”

Argentina, for its part, has lambasted Iran’s “persistent refusal” to cooperate with the probe into a 1994 bombing in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people and injured more than 300 at a Jewish community center.


More than 1,000 celebrities back Israel’s Eurovision inclusion amid boycott calls
More than 1,000 figures from the global entertainment industry have signed an open letter supporting Israel’s continued participation in the Eurovision Song Contest, pushing back against growing calls for a boycott.

The letter, organised by the non-profit Creative Community for Peace, brings together actors, musicians and executives who argue that Israel should not be excluded from the competition.

Signatories include Amy Schumer, Helen Mirren and Boy George, alongside names such as Mila Kunis and Israeli artist Noa Kirel.

The intervention comes amid renewed pressure on the European Broadcasting Union to remove Israel from the contest, with some artists and campaigners urging participating countries to withdraw.

In the letter, signatories say Eurovision should remain focused on music rather than politics, warning that excluding Israel would undermine the spirit of the competition.

“We, the undersigned members of the entertainment industry, are writing to express our support for Israel’s continued inclusion in the Eurovision Song Contest,” the letter states.

It adds: “Those who are calling for Israel’s exclusion are subverting the spirit of the Contest and turning it from a celebration of unity into a tool of politics.”

Music manager Scooter Braun said: “Music is a place for unity, not division. It is a language that should always bring us together. Artists should never be discriminated against for who they are, who they love, or where they’re born.”

KISS frontman Gene Simmons added: “Those advocating to exclude an Israeli singer from Eurovision don’t move the needle towards peace, but only further divide the world.”

Actor Mayim Bialik said calls to boycott Israeli performers were “abhorrent and shameful”, adding that targeting artists “tarnished the unifying spirit that is Eurovision”.

Television personality Sharon Osbourne said attempts to exclude Israelis were “twist(ing) art into a tool of division” and “erod(ing) the shared humanity that the arts are meant to preserve”.
David Draiman | The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan
Billy Corgan sits down with Disturbed frontman David Draiman for an unfiltered conversation about music, identity, and what happens when an artist steps into the political firestorm. What starts as a reflection on a surreal Black Sabbath/Ozzy tribute quickly turns into something deeper. Draiman shares how the October 7 attacks reshaped his worldview, why he felt compelled to go public, and the personal toll it’s taken, from media narratives to fractured relationships. Corgan pushes on the bigger questions: Where’s the line between free speech and responsibility? Should artists use their platform for politics or stay out of it? This is a tense but thoughtful exchange about conviction, consequence, and the role of artists in a divided world.




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